


What the Hell... is a Sexual Surrogate?

by sarahyellow



Series: Doctor Series [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Counselor Sam Wilson, Dirty Talk, Dry Orgasm, Explicit Consent, Flashbacks, Healing Sex, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Panic Attacks, Past Rape/Non-con, Prostate Massage, Prostate Milking, Psychological Trauma, Sex Surrogate Steve, sex surrogate, sex therapy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-26
Updated: 2019-03-01
Packaged: 2019-03-24 12:00:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 22,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13810746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarahyellow/pseuds/sarahyellow
Summary: Bucky Barnes is a man out of time, formerly the Winter Soldier. Recent captivity and rape while on a mission as a member of the Avengers Special Forces has led him into semi-retirement and therapy with Sam Wilson. And now that he can't seem to find a way past his intimacy issues, he's been introduced to one Steven Grant Rogers, sexual surrogate.





	1. 1

Bucky hardly notices how hard his metal fingers are digging into the cushions of the couch he’s sitting on. He’s staring at his therapist, Sam, as if he’s just spoken an alien language. “What,” he asks carefully, “the hell is a ‘sexual surrogate’?”

Sam sighs. “It’s a licensed practitioner—a therapist of sorts. They’re trained in addressing issues of intimacy and sexuality. And like I said: with a history of trauma like yours, I think you could benefit from seeing one.”

If Sam thinks that this is something Bucky will just go along with, he’s dead wrong. “I don’t have intimacy issues,” he insists, leaning back in his chair. He’s crossed his arms. “I’m not going to let some stranger fuck me.”

“Man, it’s not about that.” Sam seems like he’s expected at least this much of an argument from Bucky. “They do all sort of things to help people, not just sex.”

“But including sex?” Bucky asks.

Sam sighs again. There’s no doubt that Bucky Barnes is his most difficult client. “Yes Bucky, often including sex.”

“And this is _legal_?” Sam nods and Bucky scoffs. The future, he thinks, is off its rocker. “I am not going to let some stranger fuck me,” he repeats, deadpan. 

.oOo.

Sam’s arranged for Bucky to meet the sexual surrogate guy at his office, right after their next therapy session together, and Bucky’s a nervous wreck because the last time he tried doing anything even remotely intimate with anybody, he’d wound up putting them through a wall. 

“What all does he know?” Bucky asks. The guy’s name is Steve, Sam’s told him, and Bucky’s not exactly keen on a complete stranger knowing the entirety of what’s been done to him, of what exactly it is that’s made him so fucked up that he’s agreeing to using the services of a sexual surrogate—the term, and the concept of which, still baffles him.

“Only that you’ve had a history of captivity and sexual assault,” Sam assures him quietly. They’re sitting with the door open and he doesn’t want to speak loudly enough for any of the passers by in Avenger’s Tower to overhear what they’re saying. “Anything else he knows is up to you.”

Bucky ‘humphs’. He isn’t convinced yet that this is a good idea. “What if I just wind up hurting him?” he says. 

“I wouldn’t worry about it. He’s a big guy.”

Bucky’s about to ask how big, when the answer to that question walks through the door. Bucky’s eyes widen. The guy is tall—maybe taller than him—with blond hair and blue, blue eyes. He’s very handsome. Bucky may have intimacy issues since being liberated from Hydra, and they may be worse since Belgrade, but he can certainly still appreciate a pretty face.

“Hi,” the man greets them. “I’m Steve.” For his size, he somehow manages to hold himself timidly. It makes him seem small, and Bucky wonders if he’s doing it on account of that he’s heard of Bucky’s issues. Sam gets up and shakes the man’s hand. Steve looks over Sam’s shoulder to where Bucky is standing. “Hi.” He offers a smile, and it makes his face all the more beautiful. “You must be Bucky.”

“Must I?” Bucky says with his eyebrow raised. Sam glowers at him. “Yeah,” he amends, “That’s me.”

“Okay. Hi.” Bless his heart, Steve looks like a puppy who hasn’t noticed that Bucky wants nothing to do with him. “Nice to meet you.”

Bucky wishes he could say the same, but he can’t. It isn’t exactly ‘nice’ to need professional help when it comes to something as personal as this. It’s acutely embarrassing actually. Sam ushers Steve into the office, gesturing for him to take the couch opposite Bucky’s, and then he makes his way out into the hallway. “I’ll be in the lounge,” he tells Bucky, hand on the doorknob. “You can come get me if you need anything, kay?”

Bucky very much does not want to be left alone with this man, but he doesn’t want to seem like a big, metal-armed baby, clinging to his therapist, so he just nods and says, “Yeah, okay. Thanks Sam.”

Sam nods and shuts the door on his way out, and Bucky’s left to worry about what to say to fill the silence that stretches between him and Steve. Luckily it’s Steve who speaks first.

“So Sam tells me you’ve been in therapy with him for a little over a year?”

“Um, yeah.” Bucky licks his lips, nerves getting the better of him. He’s sitting across from Steve and his hands feel awkward on the couch cushions. He slips his metal hand under his leg. “Been seeing him since I...” he flounders. “Since I was rescued.”

Steve nods. “You’re in the military?”

“No. I mean not any more. I was, a long time ago.” Bucky pulls his hand out from under his leg and shows it to Steve. “I was medically discharged after I lost it.” It’s only a partial lie, and Bucky’s okay with that. He’s not ready to make a spectacle of himself by admitting that he’s actually ninety-eight years old. “I’ve worked privately for ASF since then.”

“Avengers Special Forces.”

“Yeah.” Bucky clears his throat. “Haven’t worked since my last assignment though.” Steve looks at him searchingly. There’s curiosity in his eyes, but not presumption, which Bucky is grateful for. “It was in Serbia,” Bucky clarifies. “Enemy operatives took me when our mission went south.”

Steve’s face is somber, his lips tight. “You wanna tell me about it?”

 _Not really_ , is what Bucky wants to say. He holds that back though. This Steve guy seems nice enough, and if there’s even the slightest chance that Bucky’s going to have to be intimate with him, he really doesn’t want to get off on the wrong foot. He’ll keep his smart ass mouth to himself for now. “They had me for close to three weeks,” he says, voice coming out quieter than he means for it to. “I’d been tortured before, so it wasn’t like I was unfamiliar with it.” He looks down at his feet, distracts himself by how the treads of his sneakers rub into the carpet of Sam’s office. “Extraction always came before any permanent damage could be done.” Another lie.

“Jesus,” Steve murmurs.

“Hm, yeah.” Bucky can’t make himself look at Steve when he next says, “But Serbia was different. They had some bored soldiers with too much time on their hands. …They decided to take my clothes off. Knock me around a little.”

“They assaulted you.” Steve says it as a statement, not a question, and it makes Bucky grit his teeth.

“Fucking hate that term. ‘Sexual assault.’” He shakes his head. “Sounds like such a euphemism.”

“What would you call it then?”

Bucky’s eyes flick up to Steve, and he can see that the other man is entirely focused on him, waiting for his answer. His kind eyes and pretty lips make Bucky feel incredibly put-upon. Fuck Steve and his pretty fucking face, he thinks. “Rape, Steve. I’d call it rape.” His tone isn’t kind but he can’t help it. Bucky’s always been strong; a soldier. Never in a million years had he thought he’d ever be sitting in a room discussing the violation of his own body with another person. The fact that he is, that he’s freely talking about this horrible thing with a man he doesn’t even know, is enough to piss him off, bring fourth the anger that he hasn’t rightly been able to express until now. “And I suppose you want to hear about it, huh? All the dirty details?”

Steve shrugs, not nearly as offended by Bucky’s tone as Bucky would like for him to be. “Only if you want to tell me. This is about you, Bucky. I’m here for you. If telling me anything makes you uncomfortable then you don’t have to. I can leave right now if that’s what you want.”

Bucky frowns. He doesn’t know what to say to that. Frankly, Steve isn’t at all what he’d been expecting. He’d expected some all-knowing sex therapist to come in telling him exactly what they thought he needed. But this Steve is giving him all the power, telling him that he can down right kick Steve out if he wants to. Bucky likes that. He likes having that power, and he likes Steve for offering it to him. He looks back down at his shoes, embarrassed. “Sorry,” he says. “I’m just not used to this.”

“I get it,” Steve says. “You’re not the first person that this has happened to Bucky, no matter how it may feel.”

A big sigh. If only Steve knew. Bucky’s fingers release the fabric of the couch cushion, even though he’s annoyed. “It wasn’t anything more than you can imagine,” he says. “Three weeks on a bare mattress in a concrete room. Nobody tried to be gentle because they didn’t have to.” His eyes slip shut. “I haven’t been able to… not since.”

Steve’s silent for a minute. “Have you tried?” 

Ha. Bucky makes some noise approximating a laugh. “Yes. Of course.” He swallows, looks up at Steve and his pretty face. “I put a guy through my bedroom wall.” Steve looks wide-eyed and shocked, and Bucky holds out his metal arm to elaborate. “I’m pretty strong these days. Add in some really good PTSD and dry wall doesn’t mean much.”

“I see.”

“I’d understand if you didn’t want to, you know, do this.” Bucky shrugs, glances towards the door. “I can tell Sam I just flat out refused.”

“What makes you think I don’t want to help you Bucky?” Steve looks at him, dead serious. “You think you’re unfixable, is that it? Well you’re not. I can help you.”

“Yeah?”

“Mmhm.” Steve nods. He gets up, comes over and sits next to Bucky on his couch. If he notices how Bucky tenses up, he doesn’t say anything. Slowly, so very slowly, his hand creeps over to envelope Bucky’s where it lies on the couch cushion. “I can help you,” he says again, this time more seriously. “But only if you want it. Do you?”

It takes a lot of courage for Bucky to answer, but after a brief moment of silence he does. “Yeah,” he mumbles. “I do.”


	2. 2

Bucky invites Steve to his home. It’s a choice he kind of immediately regrets, once they part ways at Sam’s office, but he consoles himself with the fact that there really isn’t an appropriate kind of place to do this sort of thing. He’s going to have to get over his own trepidations.

His suite in Avengers Tower is on the fifty third floor, just above some of the tech labs. Tony’s always tinkering with his arm so it’s a convenient set-up. As it is, Bucky hasn’t had anything done to his arm since before Serbia, and he likes it that way. When he’d last tried to have relations with another man—a Hammer Tech employee—he’d been powerful enough to break the man’s back in the middle of a panic attack. The guy’s okay, Bucky’s heard, no paralysis or permanent damage. But that’s just lucky. It could’ve been much worse, and so he doesn’t want any more upgrades being made to his arm that is already a perfectly lethal weapon.

A _'knock'_ comes from the door. Bucky freezes as if it’s shell fire. Slowly, he walks over to the door to his apartments. He knows exactly who it is, given that he doesn’t get many visitors. The knock has come at almost precisely one o’clock.

Steve is standing on the other side of the door, pleasant expression on his face. “Hi,” he says once Bucky’s opened it for him. “How’re you doing?”

Bucky would scoff, but instead holds it back and lets Steve in. He walks over to the kitchen, not allowing himself to pay attention to whatever Steve does with himself. “You want something to drink?” he asks. “I’ve got soda, juice, a fully-stocked bar.” He’s also got Asgardian mead, which he’s already helped himself to. So what if it’s only one in the afternoon? He’s pleasantly buzzed from it and that’s a good thing. Curiously, he turns back to regard Steve. The guy is standing near the kitchen island. “Well?” he asks.

“I’ll have a gin and tonic, if you have the makings,” he says.

Bucky winces. _Ew_. He goes to grab the needed items, however. Apparently Steve doesn’t hold to the old five o’clock rule either. “You always drink on the job?” he asks, a purposeful jab.

“Mm, no. But I’ve got a feeling I’m going to need a stiff one with you.”

Bucky’s taken aback. He pours the drink together and regards Steve cautiously. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asks. He walks over and hands Steve his drink. 

Steve sips it and seems to find it acceptable. “Sam told me that you don’t like opening up to other people.”

“Did he now?” It’s entirely true, of course. Bucky went seventy years with no outlet for his feelings, and while the following three have afforded him much more opportunity to share, he really hasn’t felt the need to do so. Sharing is dangerous; it makes you weak. Bucky has no desire to be weak. “I have a hard time of that, yeah,” he admits. He walks over to his living room and gestures for Steve to join him. They both sit on the same sofa, though Steve is careful not to sit too close. Bucky is secretly grateful for that. “So how exactly do we go about this?” he asks, feeling bold. Must be the mead. He lifts the glass of it to his lips, taking another carefully-measured sip. “What’s the… the routine?”

Steve shrugs. “It’s always different, what I do. Depending on my client and what their needs are.”

Bucky frowns. “I’m not comfortable getting close to people,” he points out. Maybe needlessly, given how perceptive this Steve guy is. “Haven’t been in a while. To be honest I’m not even sure what my ‘needs’ are.”

Steve seems to have expected this. “Okay,” he says, “so what was your sex life like before the attack? If you don’t mind telling me, that is.”

Bucky very much does mind, but Steve’s gentle approach has him feeling much more willing to respond. “I ah, I struggled before the attack in Serbia,” he admits. "But not for the same reasons. It was more like, cultural isolation. I didn’t connect with anyone. Couldn’t really.”

“Sam said there was a history of assault before your most recent attack.”

“Yeah, but the blessing was that I’d been made to forget most of it.”

“Made?” Steve asks, sounding puzzled. “What do you mean, made?”

Oh god, Bucky’s said too much. He wants to smack himself. “I was…” he has no idea what to say. How does one explain that they’ve been brainwashed? “I just forgot,” he excuses. It’s weak, but it’s all he can manage. “Pushed it away,” he says.

Surprisingly, Steve seems to understand this. “You repressed it.”

“Something like that.” Bucky shrugs. “So before Serbia I was pretty alright. I didn’t have freak outs when I… when I was with people.”

“Were there many people?” Steve asks.

“Um, a few.”

Steve tilts his head. “Were they serious relationships or more casual affairs?”

Bucky wants to ask why that matters, but instead he says, “More casual. They were…” _what did people call it nowadays?_ “Hookups?”

Steve smiles, and again Bucky’s reminded of how pretty he is. “You sound unsure about that.”

“No. I mean I am sure. I was never with any of them more than once or twice.” _Well_ , Bucky’s mind supplies, _except for Natasha_. She’s the only one with whom he’s had a real connection, but Bucky isn’t willing to bring her into this conversation. He can’t very well do that without getting into his past with her, and he really doesn’t want to have to explain to Steve that he’s been sleeping with the woman whom he once trained as an assassin. Yeah, best to leave that one alone. “They were all casual.”

Steve takes another sip of his drink. He looks like he’s considering his next question. “All men?”

“Yes.”

“So you’re gay?”

Bucky blanches. He’s still not quite used to that—the whole _gay_ thing. Every time he’s confronted with it, a little voice in his brain panics and tells him to _deny!deny!deny!_ —a holdover from his life before, when such an admission could’ve gotten him in big trouble. “Um, yeah,” he says quietly. “I like women too though.”

“So you’re bisexual?” Steve doesn’t seem phased at all by this, so Bucky nods.

“Yes. I guess that’d be the right word for it.”

“Are you comfortable with me then?”

Bucky’s first reaction is to snort. Steve, the poor guy, looks slightly hurt, and so Bucky quickly says, “Sorry, yes I am. I just thought that was funny. Like you were asking if I was attracted to you or not.”

“Are you?”

“Have you looked in a mirror, Steve?” At this, Steve blushes a little so Bucky adds, “Yeah, I find you attractive. M’not sure who wouldn’t, unless they were a straight man. ...Or a gay woman."

Steve stays silent for a moment, as if he doesn’t want to outright agree. Bucky gets it. It’d probably come off conceited if he did. “Tell me about the last time you tried to be intimate with someone,” Steve says, scooting a little closer on the couch. Bucky doesn’t fail to tense up at the increase in proximity, but neither does he shrink away. That’s progress at least. “The guy who’s back you broke.”

Bucky winces. “He’s okay now,” he feels the need to remind. “And he wrote me a letter. Doesn’t blame me or anything.”

“That’s good. But do _you_ blame you?”

 _Gosh, this Steve guy is perceptive_ , Bucky thinks peevishly. “I… guess so,”’ he admits. “I mean it’s hard not to feel bad about hurting someone like that.”

“It was an accident,” Steve reminds him. “Tell me about what led up to it.”

Bucky sighs, remembers the drink in his hand and takes another fortifying sip of it. It burns going down, and he thinks that he’ll have to thank Thor for the gift next time he sees him. “I’d met him at one of those Avengers Publicity things. Where we all talk with the press and let people take their pictures with us. He was there as some sort of representative for Hammer Industries—you know, the weapons manufacturer?”

Steve shakes his head. “I’ll take your word for it.”

“Well anyway, he was a nice guy. We got to talking, he had some vibranium knives to show me and I love knives so…” Bucky looks up, notices that Steve’s got one eyebrow raised. _Right_ , he thinks, _don’t talk about your affinity for knives_. “We had some drinks and wound up coming up here.” Bucky throws his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of his bedroom. “We started kissing, hands all over each other.”

“Did that trigger you?”

Bucky thinks about it. “No, I guess not. It was still ah, still pretty good at that point.”

“Where do you think it went wrong?”

Bucky frowns and tries to remember. It’d gotten pretty hot and heavy between the two of them before he’d wound up throwing the guy against the wall. “We… were naked. On the bed. He was underneath me and I…” A flash of memory, so quick and sharp it could be a movie clip, comes unbidden. Bucky squeezes his eyes shut, the memory hitting him hard. “He flipped us over. Climbed up my body so his hips were at my face.” 

“He wanted you to perform oral sex on him.”

Bucky winces. “Uh huh. And I was just… trapped underneath him, no warning.” He looks down at his hands, turns the glass round in them. “They made me do that, um, a lot.”

“When you were held captive?” Steve asks quietly.

“Yeah.” Bucky’s sure his face is aflame. He’s never had to admit to this particular violation before, not even to Sam. “His hands were on my face, holding me still and he was trying to make me…” guiltily, he glances up at Steve, who is unfortunately paying close attention. “It was like I was back there all over again. I could hear them laughing and… and smell them. And I just snapped.”

“Threw him off of you?”

“Yeah. I don’t actually remember doing it but when I came to it was pretty clear what I’d done.” Bucky chews his lip, remembering seeing the poor guy lying on the floor, bits of plaster and the remnants of the bedside lamp all around him. “He was out cold. Bleeding. There was a dent in the wall where he’d hit it.”

“Jeeze.”

“Yeah.” Bucky flexes his left arm, looking at the metal fingers reproachfully. “I’d never used it to hurt a civilian before.” _Lie_ , his mind supplies, but Bucky pushes that to the back of his mind. His crimes as the Winter Soldier don’t count. Sam has said so time and time again. 

“What did you do once you were aware of your surroundings again?”

“I called down to Tony’s suite,” Bucky says. “That is, um, Tony Stark. He’s the one who owns the building.”

Steve’s lips quirk, as if he finds it funny that Bucky’s said so. “Yes I know. He your boss?”

“God no. We’d be in serious trouble if Stark was the leader of Avengers Special Forces. Nick Fury is my boss.”

“I don’t know him.”

“Doesn’t matter. Tony though, he’s kind of been my contact point with the outside world. He got me set up here in the tower, got me approved to go on Avengers missions.”

“So you trust him?”

“Yeah. In the ways that count most at least.” Bucky sighs. “So I called down to his suite and he came up, called the paramedics. Then they came and took him away, and the cops showed up soon after that and took my statement.”

“They didn’t arrest you?”

Bucky scowls. “No. I told you it was an accident.”

“Hey, hey, I know.” Steve is holding his hands up in apology. “But I’ve had clients who’ve had similar accidents Bucky. Who’ve hurt people by accident. Sometimes the cops overreact and presume that it’s a domestic violence incident.”

“Well this wasn’t,” Bucky says sternly. “And they knew it. They just took my statement and told me to get a lawyer in case the guy pressed charges.”

“Did you? And did he?”

“Tony’s got lawyers out the wazoo. And no, once the guy woke up he didn’t press any charges.” Bucky looks down, embarrassed. “I think he just felt bad for me, to be honest. Told me he didn’t want to see me again.”

“Can you blame him?” 

“Huh, no.” Bucky shrugs. “So there you have it. The disaster that was my last attempt at sex.”

Steve is silent for a moment. He takes another sip of his drink and leans forward to place it on the coffee table. With both of his hands free he reaches forward, asking silently for Bucky’s. Bucky’s struck dumb for a second, not knowing what to do. If Steve notices this he doesn’t say anything, just waits patiently until Bucky can muster the courage to place his flesh hand within Steve’s own. 

“Your other hand too, Buck.”

Bucky squints, unsure how he feels about Steve using his name that way. But after a brief hesitation he allows Steve to hold his other hand as well. His hands are large and warm; softer than Bucky’s but seemingly just as strong. “What’re you doing?” he breathes, unsure.

“Just touching you.”

“Why?”

Steve tilts his head consideringly. “When was the last time you were touched, Bucky?”

Bucky frowns. After a moment he realizes that he can’t quite remember. Surely it hadn’t been all the way since the fiasco with the guy… Wow. He thinks it has. “Little over six months,” he murmurs. Suddenly his hands feel much more awkward where they’re held in Steve’s own.

Steve is shaking his head as if he disapproves. “Not even a hug or a casual touch?”

Bucky thinks again, and nods. “Yeah. I guess not.” At Steve’s continued look of concern he adds, “Well I’m single, after all.”

“But friends? Family?”

Jeeze. If Steve’s trying to make him feel pathetic he’s kind of succeeding. “I don’t have friends,” he says tightly. “And my family’s all dead.” _Long dead_ , he thinks but omits. 

“I see.” One of Steve’s thumbs rubs gently over the back of Bucky’s hand, and it feels nice. “Well in that case I have to tell you: it’s hardly healthy for a person to go for so long without being touched.”

Bucky doesn’t know what to say to that. He can’t make himself pull his hands away from Steve though. He kind of wants to lean into him. “What’re you going to do?” he asks.

“I can do as much or as little as you like,” Steve says. “In the long run, that is. For now I think it’d be useful for us to discuss more specifically what went on during your captivity. So that we can predict what else might trigger you.”

Bucky nearly winces. “I hate to think about it.” He’s sure talking about it will be worse. “Do we have to?”

Steve shrugs, again looking non-imposing. “I think it’s a good idea. Then we can talk about what you might and might not be comfortable doing physically.”

Bucky stares. “With you?”

“Yeah Buck, with me.”

Bucky’s eyes dart over to where he laid his mead aside. He’s going to need another drink.


	3. 3

“I think,” Steve says as he watches Bucky settle down next to him on the couch with his second glass of mead, “That you should consider not drinking when we’re together.”

Bucky raises an eyebrow and takes a challenging sip of his drink. “Yeah?” he says. “Why’s that?” He knows exactly what Steve’s going to say, of course, and he doesn’t want to hear it.

Steve just shrugs, arm still thrown over the back of the couch in Bucky’s direction. It’s been a clear invitation for Bucky to get closer, if he wants. “We’re practicing intimacy Buck. If you feel the need to drink alcohol to work up the courage to do that well, it could be habit-forming.”

Bucky can’t exactly argue that. “Habit-forming, huh?”

“Yeah. I’ve seen it before.”

Bucky tilts his head. “Other clients?”

“Mmhm.”

Bucky’s wondered about that but he hasn’t had the nerve to ask, really. It’s felt like too much of an imposition, to inquire about what Steve does when he’s not with Bucky. “How many clients do you have?” he asks.

“A few at a time, usually. I also run a private practice as a more traditional sex therapist.”

Bucky’s surprised at that for some reason. “You mean sex therapy… without the sex.”

“Exactly. Mostly married couples actually.”

“So why do this?” Bucky gestures to the two of them. “If you make money doing something else—” he cuts himself off, realizing he’s gone too far. “No, you know what, I’m sorry. That’s none of my business.”

Steve smiles, and just like all the other times he’s done it in Bucky’s presence, it lights up his whole fucking face. The man is gorgeous and it isn’t fair. “That’s alright,” Steve says easily. “I don’t mind you asking questions.”

“No?”

“It’s okay. If we’re going to be intimate you need to feel like you can open up to me, and vice versa.”

“Oh.” Bucky nods. ‘ _Intimate_ ,’ he wishes Steve wouldn’t use that word so much. He looks at where Steve’s got his arm thrown over the back of the couch and decides that the least he can do is sit closer, so he does. Steve makes a pleased noise and lets his hand come down to rest around Bucky’s shoulders. “So…” Bucky bites his lip. “I’m still gonna finish this.” He gestures with his cup and takes another sip. It’s Asgardian Mead; not exactly easy to come by and he’s sure as hell not going to pour it down the drain just because Steve’s worried he’s on the fast track to alcoholism, or some such. 

But Steve nods at the cup, “Mind if I try it?”

Bucky snorts. “Trust me, you couldn’t handle it.” At Steve’s questioning look he grimaces. “Um, it’s strong stuff.”

“Bucky I’m bigger than you,” he points out. “But if you don’t want to share...”

 _Oh_ , so that’s how it is. Bucky hands the cup over. “Proceed with caution,” he warns. If Thor could see him handing the mead over to a normal human, he’d probably revoke Bucky’s privileges. Steve takes a sip, ponders it, then gives Bucky back his cup.

“It doesn’t taste like much.”

“Yeah well,” Bucky shrugs, drinks a little more. “Give it a minute, you’ll be surprised.” 

Steve’s thumb rubs along Bucky’s shoulder where he’s got his hand, moving the material of his shirt minutely. It’s his left shoulder—the metal one—and Bucky kind of feels like he should speak up and say something about the fact that he can’t exactly feel it the way he would on his flesh shoulder. But it’s some sort of progress that he’s accepting being held, so he keeps his mouth shut. Ahead on the tv, the ‘ _dun dun_ ’ sounds of the current episode of law and order sound as it comes back from commercial. They’ve been watching the show while they “initiate simple touch” as Steve had put it. It’s a good pick; something that doesn’t really require that much attention but which does a well enough job at filling the room’s silence. 

The detectives have somebody crying in the interrogation room. As it is, Bucky can’t exactly remember what crime it is that the suspect’s supposed to have committed, not when Steve’s got one arm slung around his shoulders and they’re sitting hip-to-hip. It _does_ feel intimate, like sitting on the couch with a boyfriend, and it’s the closest Bucky’s been to another human being in over half a year. It feels daunting but he’s been trying to relax into it. The first cup of mead and now the second are helping, and Bucky thinks that maybe he’ll have to consider Steve’s point about dependence on alcohol. 

Steve hugs him closer to his side, and Bucky relaxes into it. It feels nice. “Remember how we said we’d talk about your triggers?” he asks.

 _Ugh._ “Yeah,” Bucky says. “But other than having some guy try to sit on my face I couldn’t exactly say what would trigger me.” He feels pathetic that he even has any triggers at all. “What do you want to know?”

“Well for starters you could tell me about what you did like during sex. Before the assault.”

Another word Bucky hates for Steve to use. But Sam uses that one too and Bucky figures he just has to get the fuck over it. “Well I… before that is, I um,” he blushes, looking down into the amber depths of his cup. “When I was with guys I liked receiving, uh, being on the bottom that is.”

“Okay.”

“With women it was different of course. Loved being with them too. Still do, but uh, yeah.” Bucky shrugs. The thought of trying to be with a woman now is somehow even more terrifying. He’d hate to freak out and put some poor dame through his bedroom wall. “Wouldn’t want to chance hurting some dame,” he says out loud, realizing too late that he’s spoken with one of his old-timely words. “Uh, woman” he corrects. A quick glance to Steve doesn’t show any reaction, and Bucky relaxes. He’s still not ready to tell Steve about that part of his past. He doesn’t know if he ever will be. 

“I understand,” Steve is saying. He’s still rubbing his thumb up and down on Bucky’s metal shoulder, and where their thighs touch the heat radiates out of him like a furnace. Bucky has the thought that the guy would probably be like a human heater in bed, and then he blushes and tries not to think of Steve naked. “So do you think you’d prefer to top, now?”

Bucky thinks about it. Tries to think about what’d been going through his mind that night with the Hammer Industries guy. Had he been planning to top then? They hadn’t gotten that far but… _no_ , he thinks. He’d really intended to let the other guy top. “I’d actually still prefer to bottom,” he admits quietly. “I just don’t think…”

“You don’t think it would work,” Steve supplies. “You think it would trigger you.”

Bucky nods sheepishly. “Yeah.”

Steve clears his throat. “You don’t have to answer this if you don’t want to, but did your captors rape you? That way?”

Bucky’s eyes widen a fraction. He’d thought Steve knew. “Well, yeah,” he says. 

“I see.” Steve pulls him tighter against his side. “Well then it makes complete sense that you’d be nervous to let another person be close to you like that.”

Bucky snorts at Steve’s careful language. “So if we manage to get all the way to having sex, you’d be fine with me…?”

Steve’s lips twitch. “With you topping?”

Bucky shrugs. “Well you’re a big guy. Kind of look like the type to never have—”

“I’ve done both,” Steve says calmly. “And I’m comfortable with both.”

“Oh. Okay. Good.” Bucky goes back to drinking his mead to distract himself. He glances back to the episode that’s playing. The detectives are chasing someone on foot now. “What do you do with your women clients who’ve been raped?” he suddenly asks. “I mean they can’t be comfortable with sex and you can’t bottom with them?” He feels stupid and intrusive as soon as the words are out of his mouth, but nobody ever said that Bucky’s very tactful. 

“I don’t take women clients,” Steve says. “I’m gay. When it comes to this—to my surrogacy work—I only take male clients.”

Bucky blinks. “Oh.” Somehow he’s surprised. He’d imagined that Steve went both ways. Huh. “So, do you have a boyfriend?” _Guh!_ He winces internally. Another completely inappropriate question.

But Steve just laughs. “No.”

“No?”

“Suffice it to say that it’s hard to date when you do what I do for a living.” Steve gives him a look. “I mean I’m sure you can imagine that not many potential dating partners would be understanding of the fact that I have sex with people as part of my job description.”

“Oh.” Bucky nods. “Yeah I guess not.” Steve gives a sad little smirk, and Bucky feels instantly bad for him. Somehow he feels guilty about that, since he’s obviously contributing to Steve not having a significant other. He’s barely gotten to know Steve Rogers and already he can tell that the man is made of gold. Hell, you could probably crack him open and he’d have a core of it. Somebody as nice as Steve certainly deserves to have someone who cares about him, deserves someone to go home to at night. “Sorry,” Bucky says, even though it rings kind of hollow.

“It’s my choice,” Steve says. “I like helping people.”

“Even people as fucked up as—”

Steve’s hand squeezes at Bucky’s shoulder—the pressure sensors under the plates pick up on it. “I told you—no talk like that.”

Bucky blushes and tucks his head into the hollow of Steve’s neck, something warm and sappy blooming in him at Steve’s reprimand. “Sorry,” he mutters. It’s nice to have somebody who thinks better of him than he does of himself, even if it’s only the guy’s job.


	4. 4

“I liked rough sex,” Bucky blurts out the next time he sees Steve. They’re sitting on the couch again, but this time Bucky’s made it all the way into Steve’s lap, his thighs straddling Steve’s and his hands on his shoulders and in his short blond hair as they kiss. It’s nice, to be with a guy as big as Steve. Bucky hasn’t been allowed to feel like the little one in quite a while and he’s missed it. Steve pulls back in surprise at the admission, and the way he looks at Bucky makes him want to take back what he’s said. “That is, I mean…” 

“Yeah?”

“Um, yeah,” Bucky admits. He runs a hand nervously through his own hair—which has come loose from its tie since they started making out. “Just… nothing extreme. But hair pulling, having my throat… held. Dirty talk and stuff. He chuckles self-depreciatingly “Guess that’s out the window now though.”

Steve is quiet for a minute, thumbs stroking thoughtfully on Bucky’s sides, on the skin just under where his tee-shirt ends. “We need to get you comfortable with the basics,” he says.

“Yeah, sorry it was stupid. I—”

“But there’s no reason why you can’t get back to what you used to like in bed,” Steve says, cutting him off. He smiles a little and Bucky can’t look away from his slightly-swollen lips. “We only have four more sessions together, so I don’t know if _we’ll_ get to that”—Bucky’s heart sinks at the reminder of their limited time together—“But I’d be glad to help you explore it if we do.”

Bucky smiles a little. “Yeah?”

“Mmhm.” Steve’s hands curl over Bucky’s hips, pulling him closer in his lap. Underneath, Bucky can feel Steve’s erection. He’s hard too, but neither of them have said anything about it. The need isn’t really there. What they’ve been doing now—sliding their mouths together in easy, gentle kisses, is more than enough. It certainly feels good. Steve pulls Bucky in for another kiss, his mouth slotting over Bucky’s own. Bucky makes a pleased noise into it, and for the first time Steve’s tongue slips out, tracing lightly over Bucky’s lip. It’s a clear request to be let in, and Bucky opens up to it.

Steve kisses so slow and gentle. Even when he’s fucking into Bucky’s mouth with his tongue, he still does it with perfect measure. It’s damned near graceful and it has Bucky’s blood running hot under his skin. He makes a noise into the kiss and grinds his hips forward without thinking about it. It feels so good. The way Steve kisses him, the way he holds him in his lap makes Bucky pretty sure that he’ll be a great lover. 

If they can get that far, that is. One of Steve’s big hands comes up to cup the back of Bucky’s head and Bucky pulls away at first, overcome by a memory of someone forcing his head down where he didn’t want it to be. He tries not to show his panic but Steve notices, and he gentles, “Hey, hey it’s okay.” The hand gets removed from the back of Bucky’s head and Bucky looks down, ashamed. Steve’s breath is warm against his face.

“It’s not okay,” he murmurs. “I like this. I want to keep going. I don’t want to…” he squeezes his eyes shut. “ _God_ , I don’t want to keep flinching like that. I hate not knowing what’s gonna make me freak out.”

“Bucky,” Steve chides gently, coaxing him to open his eyes by thumbing the skin at the crease of his eye. “You weren’t freaking out. You just tensed up. It’s something you don’t like—having your head held like that. And that’s okay. That’s what I’m here for--to help you figure out what you do and don’t like.”

“But I told you,” Bucky complains. “I did like that. Used to love it.”

“People change,” Steve tells him. “Sometimes from trauma, sometimes not.”

“‘Trauma,’” Bucky echoes bitterly. “Hate being traumatized.”

“Everyone’s got their thing Buck.”

Bucky regards Steve. He hasn’t said anything about how much he likes that Steve calls him that; ‘Buck’. He really doesn’t think it’d be appropriate if he did. “Even you?” he asks.

“Yeah even me.”

Bucky can’t help it, he tilts his head. “What’s yours?”

“Mine has to do with my health, not sex.”

“Your health?”

“Mmhm.” Steve shrugs. “I used to be really, well, really sickly. Was for all of my childhood actually. I was always getting sick with one thing or another. Missed out on a lot of things because of it. And I was a complete shrimp until well into high school. Skinny, crooked spine, you name it.”

Buck’s eyes widen marginally. “I have a hard time imagining that.”

One of those bright, uninhibited smiles splits Steve’s face again, and Bucky melts a little. _Fuck_ , that smile. “Believe it.” He pokes Bucky’s side. “I’ll bring you a picture sometime, show you I’m not full of crap.”

“I think you better,” Bucky says. “Because…” He brings his hands up, running the flesh one over Steve’s bicep and the metal one over his pec. “What you’re describing is a far cry from this.”

Steve chuckles. “Yeah. Well this is effort. A lot of effort.”

Bucky snorts. He’s kind of figured that when he’s not busy therapizing and sleeping with sex-negative people like him, Steve probably _lives_ at the gym. “How does this make you traumatized again?”

“I hate hospitals,” Steve says. “And doctors. I panic if I even get a sniffle, or if someone I care about does.” He shakes his head. “I can’t even watch tv shows or movies about sick people. Remember last time I was over, how I made us skip over that one episode of _Law and Order_?”

Bucky squints. “Yeah?”

He shrugs. “As soon as the plotline became about somebody with HIV I wanted to change it.”

Bucky’s lips part. He hadn’t realized. “Oh my gosh,” he says. “You really are traumatized about it.”

“Yup. It’s basically like a phobia. I…” Steve looks down, ashamed. “My mom got very sick when I was in college. She was a nurse, contracted a strain of TB from a patient that’d been in the Russian prison system. She… didn’t get better, and by the end when she was in the hospital…” Steve’s brow pinches in pain. “I didn’t even visit her. I couldn’t make myself.”

Bucky’s heart squeezes. “Oh, Steve. I’m sure she didn’t blame you.”

“Yeah, sure. Anyway I’m telling you Bucky, everybody has something.” Steve sighs, wipes the sad expression off his face. “Even me. So you see you don’t have to run yourself into the ground thinking you’re so messed up. You’ve just got a complication like everyone else.” His hands run up and down Bucky’s sides, warm even through the fabric of his tee-shirt. “And I’m here to help you with it.”

Bucky leans into Steve’s touch, comforted by it. “Thank you,” he says, leaning forward to kiss Steve again. Steve lets him, and they resume making out.


	5. 5

On Steve’s next visit they quickly get themselves to where they’d been the week before; Bucky in Steve’s lap and their hands all over each other as they make out. Only now Bucky’s gone so far as to yank his shirt off in the heat of the moment, and Steve has access to all of his upper body, which he takes advantage of. He remembers not to put his hands on the back of Bucky’s head and Bucky shows his gratitude by surging forward harder into the kiss, turning it into something hotter and more frenzied than before. When he tries to lick into Steve’s mouth, Steve parts his lips and lets him. His hands migrate down Bucky’s naked sides to his hips and they grab him there as Steve moans at a nip that Bucky’s given his lower lip.

“Ugh, Bucky.”

Bucky makes a noise of approval. He could get used to hearing Steve moan his name. He’s hard in his pants and so is Steve, and it’s getting harder not to roll his hips down to create some friction. He wants that. He wants more today. That’s supposed to be the point isn’t it? Progress? He pulls back from Steve, breath hot and slightly labored between them. “C’mere,” he says, moving to lay back on the couch and pulling Steve’s shoulders so that he’ll follow him on the way down. Steve looks surprised but he doesn’t argue, following Bucky’s lead and settling on top of him when they’re fully splayed out on the couch. 

His body is large and warm atop Bucky and it feels marvelous pressing him down into the cushions. Bucky spreads his thighs so that Steve can settle between them, and that feels even better. He holds Steve’s face in his hands and continues on kissing him. Between kisses Steve speaks to him, checking, “Is this okay? Me like this?”

“Mm, yeah.” Bucky keeps kissing him, and now his hips _are_ rolling up. Steve’s arms bracket him and it’s wonderful. Bucky doesn’t feel trapped, or panicked, or any of the bad things he’d felt with the Hammer Industries guy. “Closer,” Bucky tells him, bringing his hands down to tug Steve’s ass closer. Their clothed erections press together and the both of them moan at the same exact time.

“Oh,” Steve breathes. “Bucky.”

“Yeah,” Bucky agrees. He threads his fingers through the short hairs on top of Steve’s head and uses the grip to pull his head to the side so that he can get at his neck. He leans in, licks up a stripe to underneath Steve’s ear, where he sucks.

The moan that Steve looses is filthy. “Oh _fuck_.”

Bucky chuckles. “You like that?”

“Muh,” Steve slurs. “S’one of my spots.”

Bucky ferrets that piece of information away. “Any other erogenous spots I should know about?” he asks.

“I’m pretty sure that’s supposed to be my line,” Steve says. He rolls his hips down and watches Bucky’s face carefully, seeing the pleasure bloom there. “What can I do to make you feel good?” he asks. “Without taking our pants off?” he clarifies. Bucky pouts and Steve soothes him with another kiss. “Not that we can’t do that, but I want to know what your sensitive spots are, and not just the obvious ones.”

“My chest,” Bucky answers, blushing even as he says it.

“You got sensitive nipples?” Steve asks, smirking. He ducks his head to scrape teeth over one of Bucky’s nipples and makes Bucky yip. “Huh, guess so.”

“Yeah. And the inside of my elbows.” Steve raises an eyebrow and Bucky smacks his bicep. “What? I like it. Seriously if you suck at my inner elbow I melt.”

Steve smiles, eyes crinkling perfectly at the corners. _God_ , he’s not fair. “Got it,” he tells him. “I’ll remember that.” His hands travel down to the top of Bucky’s sweatpants, thumbs rubbing against the naked skin of his hipbones. He watches Bucky’s face carefully as he lets his fingers curl over the edge of the sweatpants. “Can I?” he asks, intent clear in his blue, blue eyes.

Bucky exhales, desire at the thought of Steve getting at his dick overpowering any self-consciousness. “Yeah,” he breathes. “I want you to.” He bites his lip, wondering if he should give Steve the same size disclaimer he gives to everyone else…

Steve smiles and pulls to get the pants down over Bucky’s erection and past his hips. He leaves the waistband at mid-thigh, ignoring it in favor of staring at Bucky’s dick. “Bucky,” he says softly, sounding for all the world like’s appreciating art. “You’re beautiful.” Bucky snorts and Steve silences him with a reproachful look. “You _are_ ,” he says. “Look at you.” He curls one hand around Bucky’s length, pressing it up against Bucky’s stomach with his palm. “Gorgeous.”

Bucky watches Steve look at his dick with reverence, looking like he’s about to salivate at the sight of it. The idea is… flattering. Bucky knows he’s got a nice cock. He’s uncut, which throws some people off but is hardly a difference when he’s this erect. He’s got length and more girth than he needs, which is one very small reason why he’s always preferred to bottom. Less awkward that way.

“Can I put my mouth on you?” Steve asks, giving Bucky’s cock a proprietary squeeze.

Bucky grunts and thrusts against Steve’s hand. “Please,” he breathes, wanting to see Steve’s mouth around him so bad. “Please, yeah.”

Steve smiles widely. “Good.” He pushes off from Bucky, which makes Bucky want to whine at the loss. But he’s quick to slip to the floor, and he pulls Bucky so that his legs hang off the couch. He sidles up so he’s kneeling between Bucky’s legs, and Bucky fights to sit up a little. He wants a good view of this. Steve’s big hands come to rest atop Bucky’s thighs. Again, his thumbs find the skin at Bucky’s hips and resume that slow stroking pattern they do, and Bucky thinks that if Steve keeps doing that, he’ll have to add his hipbones to his list of erogenous zones. 

Steve leans down so that his mouth is right over the head of Bucky’s dick. Bucky can _feel_ his breath on him, and he’s tense in anticipation. Steve glances up at him. “You good?”

“Yeah,” Bucky says. His hands are gripping the fabric of the cushions fiercely and he’s pretty sure his metal one will tear something in the couch if Steve doesn’t get his mouth on him soon. “Suck me,” he orders, and Steve obeys. Bucky inhales sharply through his nose at the wet heat of Steve’s mouth. He sucks him down quickly, coating his cock in enough spit so that once his hand comes up to assist, there’s enough slick to work with. Bucky groans, watching Steve suck and lick at the tip of his dick while his big hand wrings from the base upwards. “Fuck,” he groans, enthralled by the sight of this gorgeous man sucking his cock. Steve’s lips get red quickly just like the rest of him, and they’re lewd around the girth of his cock, looking like he’s just sucked on some cherry candy instead of Bucky’s dick. “So good Steve,” Bucky tells him, carding his fingers through his short hair. He trembles, wanting to push into the delicious heat of Steve’s mouth but restraining himself. “Steve,” he mumbles, having to capture his breath and repeat himself when Steve doesn’t hear him through the enthusiasm of his blow job. “Steve,” he repeats. “Can you… can you…”

Steve pops off of him, immediately attentive and ready to do whatever Bucky needs to be comfortable. It’s incredibly sweet. “What?” he asks. “Want me to stop?”

“ _God_ , no,” Bucky huffs. He’d laugh if he weren’t so gone on his arousal. “Want you to hold my hip down,” he says. “Else m’gonna wind up fucking your face.”

The worry on Steve’s face dissolves into a smirk. “You can fuck my face if you want.”

Bucky has to squeeze his eyes shut and try to get the image of Steve, smirking and red-lipped between his thighs, giving him permission to do _that_ , out of his head. “I’m too big,” he says, knowing that it’s true. Bucky’s not face-fucking material and he never will be. At least not on the giving end of the equation. “So hold my hips down, will ya?”

Steve hesitates, though his hands do migrate to Bucky’s hips. “You sure it won’t bother you?” They both know that, so far, Bucky doesn’t have a good tolerance for being held down. 

But Bucky just snorts and places his hands atop Steve’s to hold them in place. “You’re kneeling in front of my cock,” he points out wryly. “Not a very domineering position now is it?”

Steve chuckles and licks a fat stripe up the bottom of Bucky’s cock. “No, I guess not.” He swallows him down again, working him with just his mouth as best he can.

“Shit.” Bucky lets his head flop back against the couch cushions behind him. His hands are still resting loosely atop Steve’s own. “So good Stevie.” _Stevie?_ Bucky frowns through his next moan. _Where had that come from?_ “Oh!” he nearly shouts as Steve moans around him and does something particularly wicked with his tongue. Bucky decides that it doesn’t matter one bit that he’s just called Steve _Stevie_. “Keep…” he licks his lips breathlessly. “Keep going, please. I’m close.”

Steve growls around him and surges down lower, until Bucky can feel himself hitting the back of his throat. Steve gags violently but forces himself to hold Bucky in his throat for a long second before letting up. He uses one entire forearm across Bucky’s pelvis to hold him down, freeing his other hand to come down and cradle Bucky’s balls.

Bucky keens. “Oh, oh.”

Steve rolls them, tugs lightly, then rolls them again and pushes behind with a firm finger. Bucky makes an undignified noise of pleasure when he feels that finger stimulate his prostate from over his perineum. “In my ass. Steve, finger me!” Steve huffs around his cock—Bucky thinks it’s in amusement—but is quick to comply, pushing just the tip of that finger past Bucky’s rim. It doesn’t even mater that it’s dry because Bucky is coming right away. “Gah!” He bucks wildly against where Steve’s got him pinned down, feeling himself pulsing as he shoots off into Steve’s mouth. His eyes open on instinct, wanting to catch sight of Steve as he takes Bucky’s load in his mouth. 

Steve moans as soon as he feels it, lips tightening at the head of Bucky’s shaft and sucking him in insistent pulls. It’s like he’s eager for Bucky’s come in his mouth, and the thought has Bucky groaning again as his orgasm lingers and then peters out. “Fuck, Steve,” he says, breathless. He watches with fascination as Steve slowly pulls off of him, a trail of spit following from his dick to Steve’s candy cherry lips. Steve’s eyelashes lift so that he’s looking up at Bucky again and, holding that stare, Steve lets a little of Bucky’s come leak out the corner of his mouth and back down to his still angry-red dick.

“Holy—” Steve _swallows_. It’s very visible. “God,” Bucky amazes, huffing a laugh as he allows his head to flop again. “Is this standard or are you just putting on a show for me?” 

Steve laughs, a rich, warm sound. He sounds just about as satisfied as Bucky feels as he climbs back onto the couch and pulls Bucky into his arms. “That was just for you,” he tells him, kissing the side of his hair. “Feel good?”

Bucky makes some noise approximating a scoff. “'Do I feel good',” he parrots mockingly. “Uh, _yeah_.” It’s true. Beyond true, really. All the tension has gone from Bucky’s body. He’s completely boneless in Steve’s arms. “Guh,” he slurs elegantly into the meat of Steve’s bicep. “I think you broke me.”

Steve’s laughter booms out of his chest and in through Bucky’s skin in a very endearing way.


	6. 6

The next time Bucky sees Steve, he’s kind of forgotten that they have a session scheduled. Bucky’s just finished jerking off in the shower and has a towel around his waist when Jarvis announces to him that Steve is at the door. “Shit,” Bucky curses. He goes and opens the door and sees Steve standing there, looking relaxed and handsome as usual. “Steve, hey.”

“Bucky,” he says, surprised. “Well… hi.” His eyes rove up and down Bucky’s body, taking in his naked chest and wet hair. “You look nice,” he says with a smirk. “You forget I was coming over?”

“Sorry,” Bucky blurts, immediately regretting his decision to answer the door in this state. “I just got out of the shower. I’ll uh, I’ll put something on.” He turns to go and do just that.

“Or you could stay this way. If you wanted to.”

Bucky tenses, then turns back around slowly. He watches as Steve steps into the apartment and shuts the door behind him. “Stay naked?” Bucky asks.

“Mmhmm.” Steve holds out his hand, which is holding a plastic shopping bag. “I brought some something for you. Want to see?”

Bucky gulps. “Okay.”

Steve opens the bag, takes out a bottle of something. “Here,” he says, handing it over to Bucky to inspect.

“…Massage oil?” Bucky frowns at the bottle, then looks at Steve. “You want to give me a massage?”

Steve nods. He still looks pleased, relaxed. “Yeah,” he says. “And that’ll be easier if you’re naked.” Bucky blushes so Steve quickly adds, “Of course if you can keep the towel if you’re uncomfortable.”

Bucky scoffs. He’s already been exposed in front of Steve. The week before he’d given him a blowjob, for Christ’s sake. “Naw,” he says quietly. “It’s fine.” Then, “…Where do you want to do this?”

“Why don’t we go in the bedroom?” Steve suggests. “You can put your towel down so the covers don’t get messy.”

Bucky swallows, but nods. “Okay.”

.oOo.

Steve is straddling Bucky’s thighs. Bucky’s got his face pressed down into his pillow and he’s trying to keep his breathing even. He knows that he’s in great shape, that from Steve’s current vantage point he must look very good, but that’s only a small consolation to the way that he feels vaguely threatened by having someone on top of him like this.

“This okay?” Steve asks. His voice is cautious. 

Bucky gets it; he’s not shown good tolerance for being held down. What Steve’s doing now borders on some limit but he doesn’t say so. He wants to be good for Steve, so he just nods as much as he can in his position. “Yeah,” he murmurs, “M’good.”

Steve is silent above him. Bucky hears the bottle of oil pop open. It’s silent for long seconds after that, but then he feels a warm drizzle come down on his back. He moans. “Oh, God,” he hisses. 

“Just the oil,” Steve soothes. Bucky would huff, because _of course he knows that_ , but he remains quiet. “Gonna put my hands on you now,” Steve says. A second later, Bucky can feel his fingers meet the skin of his back. He circles them, rubbing the oil around, spreading it. He hums lowly as he works and trails his hands up higher to Bucky’s neck, rubbing what feels like both thumbs down over the tendons at his nape and the pressure points there. Bucky grunts and rubs his hips down instinctively on the bedcovers. Steve makes an approving noise and he begins using his knuckles to dig into Bucky’s shoulder muscles. 

He groans. “Oh! Steve.”

Steve chuckles. “Feel good?”

“Oh, ugh. Yeah.” Bucky’s got his eyes squinched shut. Already the pressure and kneading motions feel so good. Too good. He’s covered in goosebumps; can feel them pricking to the surface of his skin. Bucky shifts his thighs where they’re trapped under Steve’s legs. He’d gotten undressed too at Bucky’s behest, because if he was going to be butt-ass naked then by god so was Steve. Bucky can kind of feel the soft press of Steve’s junk against the underside of his bottom. It feels nice, though not nearly as nice as the things that Steve’s hands are currently doing to him. Bucky moans again. “Where did you learn to do this?” he asks, voice nearly slurred.

Steve rolls his fists down Bucky’s lats and starts rubbing the center of his back. “College,” he says, sounding vaguely amused. “I took a class.”

“Hm.” Bucky presses his ass up. “Why?”

“I thought it’d help me in the romantic department,” he tells him. “People love massages you know.”

Bucky makes some noodly sound of agreement. “Yeah, they do. God you’re good.”

Steve chuckles again, though this time it’s far deeper in his chest. The sound goes right to Bucky’s bones. “Thank you,” he says. “I like making you feel good Buck.”

“Yeah.” Bucky squirms. “I’m not panicking at having you over me like this.”

“That’s good.” Steve brings his hands down to Bucky’s lower back and rubs him there. It’s incredible sensual and Bucky has to fight not to moan. “Just relax into it,” Steve tells him. “Focus on the pleasure.”

Bucky grunts. Beneath his eyelids, he’s rolling his eyes. “Oh trust me, I am.” When Steve’s fingers inch down infinitesimally and just barely touch the tops of his buttocks in the circles of the massage, Bucky looses a whimper. Beneath him, his cock jerks. “Oh, Steve,” he says.

“Mm?” Steve asks. He rolls his own cock against the back of Bucky’s ass. It’s half hard and it slips down between his legs to rub against Bucky’s taint and balls. “What do you want to do Bucky?” he asks. “We can take this as far as you want, or not at all. I can stick to just this or—”

 

“No,” Bucky interrupts, surprising himself. “I want… I want…” 

“What do you want?” Steve nearly whispers. Bucky feels him flatten his hands out against his skin and slide them slowly all the way up his back. Steve’s fingers thread loosely in the long strands of his hair. Not holding per se, just woven there. The next time Steve speaks, he’s bent over Bucky and his voice is near Bucky’s ear. “Want to flip over so I can massage your front?” he asks lowly.

Bucky recognizes what this could mean, but he finds himself aroused at the thought. “Yeah,” he agrees breathily. “Yeah let me.”

Steve get off of him, kneeling patiently next to Bucky as he waits for him to turn over and lay on his back. One he is, Steve reaches out, puts his flat hands over Bucky’s clavicles and drags them slowly down to his chest. He pauses with his palms just centered over Bucky’s pecks, rubbing them in light circles. Bucky feels his nipples harden in response. “This okay?” Steve asks him.

“Yeah.” Bucky glances down to see Steve touching his chest. The oil feels amazing. He looks down even farther to catch sight of his hardening cock. It twitches with interest against his thigh. “Um, you can do more,” he offers, sounding unsure even though he doesn’t mean to. “If you want.”

“Do you want me to?” 

“Yes,” Bucky breathes. He wants Steve to run his hands down further. He wants to see what the other man’s large hands feel like on his dick. “Please,” he says.

Steve’s eyes crinkle at the corners when he smiles just the tiniest bit. It’s incredibly attractive. “Okay Buck,” he says, letting his hands slide down Bucky’s chest, down to his abs and all along them. He bends his fingers to let his nails scrape lightly over Bucky’s skin, and Bucky hisses at the delicious feeling.

“Oh, yeah. That’s so good.”

“Yeah?” Steve slips his hands down even further, curling around Bucky’s hips and letting his thumbs trace over his iliac crest. “So hot,” he tells him. “Your body’s just perfect.”

Bucky blushes because it sounds like Steve really means it. His eyes slip to Steve’s cock just for a second before he’s averting his gaze. He doesn’t want to be caught staring. “Yours is too,” he tells him. Bravely, he lets one of his hands—his metal one—slide over the bedcovers and up over Steve’s thigh. He’s fascinated by the way Steve’s impressive quad flexes.

He tenses at the touch, looking at Bucky with an edge of concern. “You sure?” he asks. “You don’t have to touch me if you don’t want to.”

“I want to.”

“Oh, okay. Then that’s fine.” Steve’s hand finally slips all the way down, fingers finding his erection and wrapping around it. 

Bucky sighs at the feeling. “Yesss,” he hisses. “Oh, Steve… Will you stroke me off?” It’s a downgrade from last week’s blowjob, but with the oil on Steve’s hands and the sensual way he’s touching him, Bucky finds that all he really wants right now is to feel Steve’s slippery fingers pulling on his cock. He wants to yank Steve up against his side and watch the expressions on his face as Bucky lets him stroke him, as he thrusts up a little to meet Steve’s grip. “Please?” he asks.

Steve huffs. He leans in and pecks Bucky just on the corner of his mouth. “Of course Buck. If you’re comfortable with that.”

“I am, I am,” he promises. Already, his hips are pushing up, seeking more of Steve’s touch. “Gotta make progress, don’t I?” he says.

“Yeah. Just as long as you promise to warn me if you start feeling trapped.”

Bucky squeezes his eyes closed. “Yeah I promise,” he agrees. He no sooner finishes the last word of his sentence before Steve is gripping him again, oil-slicked fingers squeezing lightly and pulling up over the head of his cock. “Oh, fuck!” His hips jump up of their own accord. It’s embarrassing how eager he is for it, except for the fact that Steve seems very turned on by it.

“You’re so responsive,” he murmurs, laying down at Bucky’s side just the way Bucky had wanted. He keeps stroking him while resting his face against his pec. Bucky nods mutely and Steve brings his other hand down to tickle his fingers against Bucky’s balls. Bucky makes some sort of choked off noise and it has Steve humming in approval. “You like that?” he asks, not waiting for Bucky’s reply before he grabs Bucky’s balls, rolling them around in his palm and tugging lightly away from Bucky’s body while his other hand continues its work on his shaft. When Bucky starts making abortive little thrusts and keening into the heavy silence between them, Steve releases him. 

Bucky cries out in frustration, opening his eyes that’ve been closed for a long minute. “What?” he says. “Why’d you stop?”

Steve shoots him a dark, aroused sort of look. Bucky catches a brief glimpse of the other man’s hard cock before Steve slips over his leg and wiggles down to rest between his thighs. “Oh,” Bucky murmurs, hands going instinctually to the top of Steve’s head. “Yeah?”

Steve give him a wicked smirk before delving down. Disappointingly, he avoids Bucky’s cock and balls altogether. Instead he lets his hands roam up and down the muscles of Bucky’s thighs. Bucky is about to huff in frustration, but then Steve squeezes him there and bends to bite the tender skin just at the top of Bucky’s inner thigh. Bucky moans, surprised at how good it feels. “Oh my god,” he breathes, pressing his head back into the pillow. His fingers get tighter in Steve’s hair, eliciting a grunt from the other man. “Oh, Steve,” he says, feeling how Steve is picking up a pattern of nips and licks along his inner thighs, the crest of his groin. It feels heavenly. “That’s so good,” Bucky tells him. “Fuck, Stevie.” Steve gives him one last, teasing nip on his thigh, then he moving back up Bucky’s body, task abandoned. When Bucky gets his eyes open it’s to see Steve poised above him. Bucky bends his knees, lifting his legs instinctually to cradle Steve’s hips between them. “Hey,” he says to him, feeling flushed and breathless from the treatment.

“Hey,” Steve says. Above him, his eyes are warm and attentive. He smiles down at Bucky. “Still good?” he asks.

“Yeah.” Bucky is both proud and relieved to realize that it’s true; he isn’t scared, hasn’t tensed up. He doesn’t feel threatened at all by Steve, only safe and pleasured. He’s just fine. “M’good,” he tells him.

“Good.” Steve’s hands find Bucky’s hips and latch on, holding him there as he turns them and rolls onto his back, bringing Bucky up to sit on top of him. Bucky gasps in surprise but moves with him, settling in place once he’s on top. He feels Steve’s erection behind his butt and his hips roll back once before he can stop himself. He relishes the pinched face and the moan he gets from Steve for it. “You like that?” he asks devilishly. Now that he’s the one on top he feels more in control and thus more comfortable. 

“Yeah,” Steve says. He curls his fist and holds in near his stomach, right in front of where the tip of Bucky’s dick is. Bucky can see the remaining shine of oil on it. “Want you to fuck into it,” Steve says lowly. His eyes are heated and focused entirely on Bucky and it makes him shudder.

“Yeah?” he asks. He scoots inches further up on Steve, getting his cock to slide into the tight curl of Steve’s fist. When his breath leaves him, it’s in a shaky exhale. “Oh, Steve,” he says, squeezing his eyes closed. “Fuck, that feels good.”

“Go ahead,” Steve husks. He sounds about as gone for it as Bucky, which only serves to rile him up more. “Fuck my fist,” he says. “Make yourself feel good. I want to watch.”

Bucky swallows, opens his eyes again. What he sees in Steve’s face then makes his stomach twist in knots and the arousal curl tighter in his belly. “Kay,” he murmurs. He plants his hands on Steve’s shoulders, moving his hips forward in an agonizingly slow thrust. Steve’s hand tightens around him, forcing him to push harder. When the head of Bucky’s cock pops out the other side of Steve’s hand and he’s pulling back for another thrust, he’s already crying out in pleasure. “Ooh, shit!” he curses, not able to take his eyes off of Steve’s.

“That’s it,” he encourages, voice low and filthy. Bucky loves it. “Come on.”

Bucky lets his fingers grip the curve of Steve’s shoulders, lets his hips start up a fluid pace. Steve makes sure to squeeze him perfectly on every thrust, providing the exact right amount of slick pressure to push him further and further into his pleasure. It’s so easy, Bucky falling into the rhythm with hardly any effort. Steve is doing all of the work, providing his body for Bucky to rub against and get off on, and it is so, so good. Bucky bites his lip as he frotts against him, hips working and balls dragging against Steve’s lower stomach. It feels heavenly, and it gets him there fast. Pretty soon he’s grunting and huffing out heavy, telling breaths. Steve must recognize them for what they are because he starts flicking his thumb against the underside of Bucky's cock on each upstroke, starts murmuring filthy encouragements at him:

“Come on Buck, I know you want to. Get yourself off. Fucking do it. So close baby, wanna see you shoot.”

Bucky cries out, hips finally shuddering as he feels himself peak. His balls draw up tight and his cock pulses, the pleasure that’s been gathering low in his spine finally bursting in an ecstatic rush. “ _Agh_!” he cries, none-too-eloquently, and thrusts hard into Steve’s hand, once, twice, before coming hard and wet up the other man’s stomach and chest. 

Steve groans, and it’s to that sound that Bucky allows himself to fall forward onto his chest. He pays no attention to the sticky mess that’s smeared between them. Steve’s body is too warm and good, feels too right as he lays there against it. Bucky can’t make himself pull away. It’s not like he isn’t going to have to get back in the shower later anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> nsfw gif coming up!!!
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	7. 7

Steve brings pizza the next time that he shows up for a session with Bucky, and the two of them sit on the couch and eat it straight from the box, Bucky leaning against Steve’s side as something inane plays on the television. It’s just like usual, and Bucky easily sinks into the familiar, small touches and back and forth talk about each of their days. Slowly but surely, these sessions are starting to feel more and more like dates. …Or at least he thinks so. Bucky’s never had a boyfriend. Back in the thirties and forties, you just didn’t _do_ that. And now, well. Now Bucky’s just not boyfriend material. 

But Steve is so _nice_. And not just that. He’s wholesome; what Bucky’s ma would’ve called “the whole package.” Bucky loves spending time with him and he hasn’t loved spending time with _anyone_ in a long time. Steve gets him. He isn’t overbearing. He _listens_ in a way that nobody seems to anymore, in a way that Bucky had thought all but lost to the times. Bucky feels almost normal when he’s with Steve. Their sessions together are some of the few times when he doesn’t feel incurably strange, or like he has to hide large chunks of himself. With Steve he finds that he can just… be. Bucky thinks that if he did have a boyfriend, he’d want it to be Steve. 

Of course he’s not an idiot. He knows Steve is just a therapist, is only with him because it’s his job. Bucky knows that, but he doesn’t like it, so he tries not to think too much about it. He’s only got two more sessions with Steve, after all. And if Steve wants to bring pizza and snuggle him on the couch while they watch trash tv and talk about the minutia of their daily lives, then that’s fine. Bucky can pretend it’s something more than it is for a little while longer. No harm in that.

They’ve got the tv on, Bucky snuggled up against Steve’s side, once again getting to enjoy the feeling of being small and held. Steve’s not _that_ much bigger than him, and he sure as shit doesn’t have a super serum or a metal arm, but Bucky still likes how he can lean fully back against Steve’s side and feel the hard, unyielding planes of his muscles underneath his sweater; how he can feel matched, maybe even taken care of.

“You really like this stuff?” Bucky asks, still half-teasing. They’ve switched out from watching gritty crime shows and instead Steve’s put on an old, romantic movie from the forties. It's one that came out before Bucky was lost to the world. He has a ghost of a memory of taking some dame to see it, right before he'd shipped out. “Well?” he prods. "This old stuff: you like it?

“Sure do,” Steve says. He’s paying more attention to the film than Bucky is, but he strokes his hand through Bucky’s hair. “I like stuff like this,” he says. “From back then. The thirties, forties. Hollywood’s golden age.”

Bucky’s eyes shoot over to Steve’s face, though Steve is still facing the tv. “Yeah?” he asks. 

“Mm hm. Sometimes I think I would’ve liked living back then more. Would’ve fit in better.”

Bucky is sure that Steve has no clue that he’s got Bucky riveted. “Why do you say that?” he asks, trying to keep his tone even.

Steve shrugs. “Times were simpler. People were nicer.”

Bucky works hard to hold in a scoff. “I dunno about that, pal,” he says. 

Steve looks over at him with a puzzled smile. “What? You know any different?” he asks, clearly teasing, thinking that Bucky’s just a normal person who’s full of shit. “Guess modernity has some benefits though.” He bends and pecks Bucky on the mouth, soft and sweet. “Couldn’t do that back then, I guess,” he says softly.

Bucky feels like his heart is swelling, getting too big and throbby for the space that’s set out for it in his chest. He squirms against Steve’s side. “Yeah, definitely not.” Steve smiles again and Bucky aches. Fuck. Steve is so pretty. So handsome and sweet and Bucky doesn’t want him to be his therapist. He wants him to be his boyfriend. His heart aches that he can’t have that, that he can’t fall in love with Steve and tell him all of his secrets. _I’m a hundred years old_ , he thinks in his head, pretending that he’s saying it aloud to Steve. _I’m a hundred years old and I want to be with you. Really be with you._

“You okay Buck?”

Bucky blinks, realizes he’s been staring and not speaking, has maybe missed some line of conversation. He swallows. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah I’m good. Um, Steve?” 

“Hm?”

Bucky doesn’t think, just asks, “…Do you think we could try, tonight?”

Steve stills. “You think you’re ready for that?” he asks. He sounds calm but unsure.

“I don’t know,” Bucky says. “I mean how can I know until we try?” Steve makes a small noise of contemplation and Bucky adds, “I want to. I’ve been, um, I’ve been thinking about it a lot.”

“You have?”

“Mm hm.” Bucky blushes, even though he knows he shouldn’t be embarrassed. Steve does this for a living, after all. “I miss it, you know? I miss having that with someone, being able to be that way with another person.” He turns his head and rubs his face against Steve’s shoulder, effectively hiding himself there. “And I feel safe with you. Safer than I thought I could.”

“I’m so glad. You know that?”

Bucky hums. “So can we?” he asks. “I want to try.”

Steve kisses the top of Bucky’s hair. “Of course Buck. Did you want to top, or—”

“No,” he says, quiet but insistent. He’s already thought of this, has worried it over in his mind about a thousand times. Bucky knows what he wants. “I want you to.”

“…You think that’ll be okay?”

“I… I think so. I hope so.”

Steve strokes Bucky’s arm through the material of his shirt. “Okay then. I’ll top. We’ll just take it slow, yeah? Work out what makes you feel good.” He shifts, moving Bucky away from his body so that he can stand up from the couch. He turns and offers Bucky his hand to pull him up. Once Bucky’s standing, Steve holds his jaw and pulls him into a gentle kiss. Leaning against Steve’s strong body feels so good, and Bucky sighs into it. “Let’s go in your room,” Steve says. “You can lay on your front and I’ll give you another massage to start. That’ll get you relaxed.”

Bucky groans, remembering the last massage and how wonderful it’d felt. Steve is really good with his hands. “Yeah,” he agrees. “Yeah okay.”

-

The massage _does_ relax Bucky. Steve rolls his hands over the planes of Bucky’s back, using his knuckles and fingers to work out the painful kinks that Bucky hadn’t even realized were there until now. His metal arm takes a toll on his body and Steve seems to know just where to rub to ease the pain away. “Oh god,” he huffs, shuddering as Steve jabs what feels like his thumb under the ridge of his shoulder blade. “Fuuck, Steve.”

Steve chuckles. “Feel good?”

“Guh. You know it does.”

Steve hums. He rubs Bucky down his back, moving down in rolling increments, until finally his hands are at Bucky’s backside. He grabs the cheeks of Bucky’s ass, kneads them in his big hands. “That feel good too?” he asks.

Bucky makes a dumb sound into the bed. “Ugh. Yeah.” He lays there and enjoys the feeling of Steve touching his ass. It’s just as soothing as the rest of the massage, but Steve touching him here has Bucky’s belly swirling a little more in arousal. Against the bed, his dick twitches. When Steve lets a tentative finger slide down between his cheeks, Bucky inhales. His eyes open. “Steve?” he breathes.

“This okay?” Steve asks. His finger, slick with massage oil, trails gently over Bucky’s hole. “Is it okay if I—”

“Yes,” Bucky says, swallowing what feels like nerves but is also arousal. “Just… can you get off of me? Don’t sit on me while you do it.” Bucky has too many memories of being held down and touched _there_. He doesn’t want to think of that, but he _does_ want Steve to touch him, he realizes. Wants him to open him up with his fingers and get him loose enough to take his cock. Steve has gotten off him and is sitting next to him on the bed. His hand returns, hesitant, so Bucky tells him, “Yes, please.”

Steve hums. “Can you move for me? Bring your knees up under yourself?” He waits until Bucky obeys, then praises him and runs hands down the length of his back. “There you go. So good for me. God, sweetheart. You've got no idea how pretty you look like this.” 

Bucky huffs at the praise, arousal and embarrassment warring in his gut. It’s a nice feeling, even if it does make him clench his eyes shut tightly. “Yeah?” he asks, voice coming out shakier than he intended. 

“Yeah.” 

There’s the sound of the cap to the oil bottle snapping open, and then a long trail of it hits Bucky right below his sacrum, trailing down to the valley of his ass. He shudders at the feeling of it, squirming. “Oh,” he breathes, “Steve.”

“Shh.” Steve brings the oil down with a heavy, slick slide. “Gonna make you feel so good, Buck,” he whispers. “Just relax into it.”

Bucky groans and grinds his now-burning face into the pillow. Steve’s fingers draw the oil down between his cheeks and over his hole in a ghost-like touch. They go further down, pressing against his taint and rubbing with a pressure and motion that’s slow and focused. The hard, rhythmic circles Steve makes against Bucky’s skin feel absolutely wonderful, and beneath his body, Bucky’s cock has grown fully hard. “Jesus,” he mutters into the pillow, fighting not to grind his ass back on what Steve is doing. “S’this supposed to be part of the massage too?” he croaks.

Steve chuckles lowly, and there’s arousal to the sound of his voice as he says, “Yeah.” His fingers are still rubbing, still pressing up deliciously against that sensitive stretch of skin, and his other hand comes down to rub lightly over his oiled hole. “Have you ever had a prostate massage before?” he asks, voice so quiet and intimate that it just makes Bucky’s face burn all the hotter, his guts squirming in arousal.

“No,” he manages. “Won’t I come if you do that?”

“Hm, maybe.”

Bucky whines and shifts restlessly, even though what Steve’s doing feels good. “But then—”

“We can still have sex afterwards,” Steve tells him. With the hand that he has massaging Bucky’s hole, he presses, just a little, and then he’s breaching Bucky’s body, finger slipping in just the tiniest bit. He pauses and asks, “Okay?”

Bucky gasps at the suddenness of the feeling but it’s just a reaction—there is no fear. “Keep going,” he tells Steve, because he knows the other man is probably worried he’s scared him. “It’s good. I’m good. Want to feel you.”

“Okay.” The finger slides in deeper, and the foreign ache of it makes Bucky’s toes curl. Steve thrusts it, pumping lightly into Bucky’s body. When he adds another finger, the stretch of it feels overwhelming and good. Bucky breathes out through his nose, whimpering when the fingers curl inside his body and find his prostate. 

“Oh!” he moans, pleasure sparking in his core.

“There you go,” Steve murmurs. He rubs his fingers in the same motion, over and over, just gently grazing over Bucky’s prostate each time. Outside, his other hand is slick and warm where it pulses matching pressure in perfect counterpoint. “Just like that,” he says. 

Bucky makes some terribly embarrassing noise of pleasure. “God,” he rasps. “Fuck, Steve. That’s… fuck. So good. Never felt anything like… _ugh_.” He trails off in a moan.

Steve’s hands are still working, still rubbing in tandem, stimulating him from the outside and inside. “Never had this without touching your cock?” he asks, and Bucky’s huff into the pillow is answer enough. Steve smiles. “You should see it, hanging between your legs. All heavy and red. Looks so good.”

“Fuck Steve,” Bucky groans. “You’re gonna kill me, saying shit like that.”

Inside Bucky’s body, Steve’s two fingers thrust just a little harder, bumping his prostate head-on and making him yelp. “You like it?” Steve asks.

“Fuck. Yeah.” Bucky feels like he’s burning up, his body hot and thrumming from arousal and what is probably a full-body blush at this point. He can’t quite bring himself to care, though. Not with Steve’s hands working him the way that they are. “Love it,” he says, voice tight. “Wanna come.”

Steve makes some noise of approval. “You’re leaking steady now.”

“Milking,” Bucky mutters, lost in the sensation.

“Yeah.” Steve strokes him again, pointedly. “How’d you know?”

“Porn.”

“Hm.” Steve sounds pleased. “If we leave your cock alone, I can make you come dry. No refractory period for that.” He leaves space for Bucky to process this, then says, “You want that?”

“Yeah,” Bucky grunts. He doesn’t even have to think about it. “Yeah, yeah.”

That’s all the permission that Steve needs, apparently, as he gets right to work in pulling said orgasm from him. His motions get firmer, the fingers inside thrusting less and just pulsing over that spot, again and again. Outside, his other hand speeds up its circles and Steve allows his knuckles to bump against Bucky’s balls, which by now are pulling in close, his body ready to come.

“Oh, oh fuck Steve,” Bucky whimpers, back tensing and releasing as he feels the strange, deep pressure build higher, squeezing and tightening in a place adjacent to where it normally does when he’s this close. He gasps, and when the air leaves him it’s in a sort of sob, but it’s a good one. It’s so, so overwhelming. “Fuck,” he cries, “Oh, I’m gonna. Shit, I’m gonna come.”

“Do it,” Steve encourages, still low and calm but eager now, too. He keeps working his hands, just keeps that same, perfect rhythm of stimulation that’s ratcheting up the pleasure, building and building until… “Just let it happen, Buck. Let go, babydoll.”

Bucky shudders at that name, like a caress, like a memory. He cries out, and he’s suddenly right there, tipping over and releasing in a rush. …Only he’s not. Not like that. There’s no wet rush of release, just the hot, sweet pulse of his body as he gasps and rides the wave of pleasure, coming dry.

“ _Good_ boy,” Steve says, voice sounding like gravel behind him. He’s watching, Bucky guesses, the thought of which makes his guts lurch and the orgasm last a second longer. He groans pitifully into the pillow as he comes down from it, body feeling boneless. Steve’s fingers pull out and he rubs both hands over his slick skin, soothing. “So good,” he repeats. 

“Want you to fuck me,” Bucky breathes into the pillow, because, _fuck_ , he does. He’s limp and completely worked-over, and he just knows that he wants to collapse to the mattress and feel Steve’s heavy body covering him. It’ll feel so good, like a dream. Bucky pushes his legs out, coming to lay on his front. Vaguely, he’s aware of how his cock is still hard where it’s trapped against the sheets. “Steve,” he slurs. “Please, I want it.” And god, he couldn’t mean it more than he does. He’s had this gorgeous, amazing man in his apartment for weeks, touching him, exciting him, and now Bucky actually feels ready enough for this. He wiggles, testing his strength now that the orgasm has subsided, and he rolls over. Steve is there, handsome and flushed with arousal himself, looking down at him with affection in his eyes. Against his stomach, his cock is hard as a rock, curved pretty and pink. Bucky sighs as he looks at it, imagines it in his body. 

“You’re gorgeous, you know that?” Steve says. He leans down and takes Bucky’s face in his hands, kisses him softly. Bucky sighs into it. He loves the kisses Steve gives him. They’re grounding, untainted, something just for the two of them. Nobody ever kissed him in Belgrade…

Steve pulls back. His eyes never leave Bucky as he picks up the oil again. “Here,” he says, reaching for Bucky’s hand. He drizzles some into his palm. “Touch yourself.” Bucky groans at the command. He reaches to wrap his hand around himself. Steve follows suit, getting more of the slick oil and touching himself. Bucky watches it with hooded eyes. Steve is perfect, and watching him jerk off gets Bucky’s pulse racing faster, his belly swirling with renewed want. Steve was right, he thinks. There’s no wait now, they can keep going.

“So hot,” he says, because he can’t not. “Steve, c’mere.” He beckons with his arm, and Steve hurries to grab the condom he’s laid on the bed. Bucky watches with only the tiniest bit of apprehension. He won’t freak out, he tells himself, hand running over his erection as he thinks about it. This is Steve, and they’ve talked about this, and Steve’s already made him feel so good. Bucky can tell him to stop any time he wants. He can have this. He’s _going_ to have this. Steve lays out over him and Bucky groans at the heavy press of his body. “God, you feel good.”

Steve grins. “Yeah?” He rolls his hips down, their erections sliding against each other where they’re trapped between their bellies. It’s delicious. Steve dips down and kisses him again, and they make out and rut together for a long few moments. It’s lazy and good and it makes Bucky feel even more at ease. He likes not feeling rushed. When Steve pulls back, there’s arousal on his face, but there’s a question there too. 

Bucky nods his head before he can ask it. “Go on,” he says, canting his hips up what little bit he can. “I want you to.”

Steve takes the time to slip two fingers back into his body, then making it three for the barest of moments. Once Bucky’s tilting his hips up into it, he removes them and sits back to put the condom on. His body settling back between Bucky’s legs, on top of him, feels solid and right, and Bucky lifts his knees to cradle him. It’s a position he never thought he could learn to enjoy again, but he does. He is. 

When Steve lines himself up and presses in, it goes straight to Bucky’s head. His lips part in a gasp that has no sound to it. “Oh,” he chokes out. “Oh, Steve.” It’s overwhelming and good, and for one long, glorious moment, Bucky thinks it’s going to work. He focuses on the feeling of Steve inside him, hot and full. There’s a slight burn to it but that’s normal and Steve is going slow and it feels good in that way that comes before the true pleasure. The stretch, the overwhelming push. _This is it_ , Bucky thinks in bliss. He’s finally doing it. He’s having sex with Steve…

Only, when Bucky closes his eyes he gets a flash of someone else, other people— _those_ people. And he can’t pull his brain back from the encroaching shadow of a memory, forceful and ugly and unwanted… he can hear them jeering… he can… he can smell the hot, sour smell of that room, the grunts of whatever man is on top of him. Bucky’s breath hitches and he wants to open his eyes but he can’t. It’s like they’re glued shut, paralyzed in fear. And suddenly he’s horribly, terribly cold, panic making his chest squeeze tight in horror at what’s happening to him, what’s being done to him. When the cock inside him thrusts, it isn’t Steve. Bucky’s back there, in that dirty room in Belgrade, and he whimpers and loses track of himself.

-

_Bucky? Bucky, oh… Buck. Baby, come back. It’s okay Bucky. You’re here, you’re right here with me. Bucky please look at me baby, it’s okay—_

Steve’s voice comes to him slowly, sounding far away at first. Bucky fades back into himself, sensation returning as he registers gentle hands petting at his face and hair, over and over again. He jerks where he lays, gasping. “Steve!” His eyes fly open, confused and afraid. He was back _there_ , surrounded by concrete and pain and his face in that goddamn stinking mattress… He registers Steve’s hand on his chest, large and warm, but unlike the hands in his dreams it isn’t hurting him. It’s soothing, petting gently. Bucky gasps. Then, sucking in a heave of air, he sobs. In seconds he’s crying, the sobs wracking his body and tears coming uncontrolled.

“Shh, sh sh. It’s okay. You’re okay. I’m right here, Buck.” 

Steve is behind him, he realizes, like a time lapse between the flashes of a blacklight. They’re laying on their sides. Steve is hugging him back against his body and they’re both covered by the blankets. Only… no, Bucky feels. It’s just him. Steve is laying outside the blankets, their bodies separated by the soft material of them. Bucky’s eyes sink closed in disappointment. He recognizes that flash of blacklight, that feeling that he’s lost a beat. Steve’s had time to cover him, and Bucky can’t remember it and he knows what that means. He panicked and went away. The memories of his rape linger at the back of his mouth, polluting his tongue like a taste that won’t go away. “Oh no,” he moans, squeezing his eyes shut. “Shit. No no no.”

Steve shushes him, hugging him. “It’s okay Buck. You’re back with me. You’re safe.”

Bucky shudders, mortified and so, so crestfallen. “What happened?” he asks. “What did I do?” 

“Nothing much baby. You just dissociated, is all. You went away in your mind.”

Bucky jerks away from Steve, not wanting to be comforted. He doesn’t deserve to be comforted. Steve has done nothing but be kind to him and give him pleasure and acceptance and Bucky _still_ couldn’t keep from freaking out. He turns over in the bed and looks at Steve with red-rimmed eyes. “Did I hurt you?” he asks. _God, please say no._

“Not at all,” Steve hurries to tell him. He’s looking at Bucky with a pained expression and Bucky _hates_ it. “You were just… away. Your eyes were open but you couldn’t see me. You were whimpering and—”

“Stop,” Bucky snaps, though his voice is quiet. “I don’t want to hear it.” He sits up and gets off the bed. He needs to get dressed, can’t stand being naked right now. Angrily, he grabs a pair of pajama pants from his dresser and shucks them on. “Let’s just face it. I’m too fucked up. I’m unfixable.”

“Bucky, please come back here. _Please_.” The sweet blue of his eyes and pinch of his brow coaxes Bucky back, if reluctantly. Bucky steps close and allows Steve to take his hand. “Just sit on the bed?” he tries.

“Don’t wanna.”

“You are _not_ unfixable, Bucky. I’ve worked with a lot of rape victims, okay? And this happens. You’re not the only one. People recover. In fact, I’ve never had a client who didn’t.” Bucky eyes him a way that clearly says, _really?_ or something like it, and Steve understands. “Yes, really,” he says, stroking his thumb over the back of Bucky’s hand, it’s his metal one, but it matters just the same. “You’ve been through something traumatic. Horrific, even. It’s going to take time for you to get better, but you will. Now will you come here and lay with me?”

Bucky bites his lip, unsure. But after another long minute of Steve’s staring at him, he can’t not obey. He climbs back under the covers, self-conscious even though he’s no longer naked. “Steve—”

“I want to hold you,” he says, interrupting. “Is that okay?”

“…Yeah.” Bucky lets Steve take him into his arms and he sighs at how good it feels. Guilt sweeps over him again. How could he freak out? What more is it going to take until he can bear to be with someone? Steve is so good, and for this not to work…

“It’s going to be okay,” he’s whispering against Bucky’s ear. “Just relax. It’s okay baby. I—” Steve freezes, tensing where he holds Bucky. He pulls back and meets Bucky’s eyes. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I… I shouldn’t have called you that.”

It takes Bucky a minute to realize what Steve’s referring to. He blinks when he realizes that Steve had called him ‘baby’. Like a boyfriend. He’s said it many times, tonight. Bucky’s heart leaps, but then he sees Steve’s expression again. He’s blushing, looks embarrassed, and Bucky doesn’t like that at all. “No, it’s okay,” he says, admitting, “…I like it.”

Steve’s features relax. “Oh? Well… okay.” Bucky can tell from the look of him, what he’s thinking. He’s thinking that he shouldn’t that it’s not professional. Bucky doesn’t like that, doesn’t like that there’s some boundary that they’re not supposed to be crossing. If Steve has to stay behind some line of propriety… well Bucky’s not sure what that’ll mean for his recovery. He’s not sure what it’ll mean for his heart. It makes him ache, in a way. It reminds him that whatever else Steve may be, he is not his boyfriend.


	8. 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: This chapter contains a graphic recalling of a rape, from the victim's point of view. If you want to read but avoid that part, stop reading when Bucky tells Steve "I... want to talk about the rape, to start off." And pick back up at: "Steve makes some sort of noise in his throat, and Bucky recognizes it for the disbelief that it is."

Bucky wakes up to the sound of his Roomba moving around and the feeling of an arm slung over his waist. His eyes fly open. 

_Oh_. It’s Steve. They must’ve fallen asleep. Is it morning? 

One glance to the window shows that it is. Bucky tries to hold still and figure out what to do. Should he wake Steve up? He kind of doesn’t want to, because he thinks that as soon as he does, Steve’ll probably do something stupid like move away, robbing Bucky of his warmth. He’ll probably stand up and be all flustered and apologize for having fallen asleep in Bucky’s apartment. 

Bucky doesn’t want that, not yet at least. He wants to enjoy the feeling of Steve’s large, warm body behind his, his strong arms holding him close, the soft sounds of his snores and the tickle of his breath on the back of Bucky’s neck. 

Somewhere on the floor, the Roomba hits a wall and changes course. “Jarvis?” Bucky whispers as quietly as he can.

Jarvis, bless his little microchip heart, responds in a whisper to match. _“Sir?”_

Bucky exhales in relief. “Turn off the vacuum, please,” he whispers.

Jarvis doesn’t even answer. The Roomba stops making noise. 

Bucky relaxes back into the bed, closing his eyes and focusing on how wonderful it feels to have a human body holding him in bed. He’s missed this, he realizes. Hasn’t had it in so long. A few quick fucks on this side of the century don’t count. Bucky hasn’t truly _slept_ with anyone in nearly seventy-three years. It’s nice.

He opens his eyes and looks down at where Steve’s hand is on the bed in front of him. His fingers twitch, as if he’s dreaming in his sleep. Bucky thinks about how he now knows that Steve snores, that he likes to hold his partner close when he sleeps, and that knowledge just makes Bucky’s heart ache.

 _I want to be the one you wake up to,_ he thinks, looking back down at Steve’s hand and just barely managing to keep from touching it. _I want you to be my boyfriend. I want…_ god, he wants to not be alone. He’s so fucking lonely. He just wants to be loved by someone as wonderful as Steve, someone who cares about people and actually fucking _tries_ ; someone who’s beautiful and sweet, has a smile like the sun and watches old movies from the forties like he actually lived through them. Bucky squeezes his eyes shut as it hits him in a sudden rush, huge and overwhelming. _Fuck_ , he thinks. _Fuck_ , he’s gone and done it. Quietly, just because he can and only because he knows that Steve’s asleep behind him, he whispers, “I love you,” into the sheets. The throb in his heart lets him know that it’s real.

Bucky starts to cry all of a sudden. That terrible, deep ache that’s been growing inside him these past few weeks just wells up, sudden and intense, and before he knows it, it’s collected at the backs of his eyes and he’s sobbing, trying so hard to keep himself silent so that he won’t wake Steve.

But his body must shake or something, because soon Steve is stirring against the back of his body, and the arm over Bucky’s side tightens, pulling him in closer. “Bucky?” Steve asks, sound sleepily confused. Then, a beat later and apparently having realized where he is, he says again, “Oh Bucky. Shit, is it morning? Shit. …Bucky? Why are you crying? What’s wrong?” He pulls Bucky so that he’s lying on his back. “Buck?”

Bucky blinks up at him with watery eyes. “Sorry,” he says. “M’sorry. I don’t know what made me do that. I just woke up and—”

Steve’s features shutter. “Oh, jeez. I shouldn’t have stayed here. You didn’t consent to this. I didn’t mean to fall asleep, I just—”

“Steve, stop,” Bucky says, hating the way that Steve looks guilty, like he thinks he’s done something wrong. “I’m not upset. It’s fine. I liked waking up to you with me.” He blushes and looks down, admitting, “I haven’t had that in…” he trails off. 

“In how long?” Steve asks gently, when it seems that Bucky isn’t going to continue. 

Bucky sighs, meets Steve’s eyes again and smiles wearily up at him. “Just… not in a really long time.”

Steve smiles sadly at him, then dips down to connect their lips in a kiss. It’s light, not even enough for either of them to taste the other’s morning breath. He just brushes their lips together in a touch that makes Bucky’s heart flutter. Emotion sweeps through him again, less sorrowful this time and instead just feeling like downright yearning…

“You mind if I use your bathroom?” Steve asks, shaking Bucky out of his thoughts. 

He nods. “Yeah. ‘Course.” He lays back and turns his head to watch as Steve pads over to the bathroom, disappearing through the door. Bucky exhales roughly and scrubs his hands over his eyes. “Fuck.”

What are they going to do now? He thinks. He knows what he’d _like_ to do. He’d like Steve to come back to bed, climb in behind him and spoon him like he was just doing. Bucky closes his eyes as he imagines it: Steve coaxing him into morning sex, slow and easy and warm. It wouldn’t be complicated, he thinks. He wouldn’t freak out. They’d just make love, and then when they were done, they’d get dressed and spend the day being lazy in the apartment, eating pancakes and watching marathons of _Law and Order._ Bucky sighs as he entertains that fantasy—the boyfriend fantasy where he’s not fucked up and Steve is with him because he wants to be, not because it’s his job. 

He’s had the fantasy before, and not just in this century, he thinks. It’d been something he’d thought about from time to time, back in the thirties, when his sexuality was developing, and then into the forties, when he’d made peace with it but accepted the reality that it just couldn’t be. A fantasy was all it’d been, back then. He hadn’t even had a word for it, hadn’t imagined himself with a ‘boyfriend’. Just with someone. That’s what he’d imagined; stolen moments with a man who was strong and handsome and who loved him.

Those fantasies had stopped, abruptly, after he’d fallen from the train. Seventy years of cold and pain left little room for any thoughts of love, let alone that sort. But Bucky can still remember when Shield had first found him, when he’d first opened his eyes to a room that _wasn’t_ a Hydra facility, and he’d fallen out onto the floor in a cold, seizing rush.

Warmth had come back then, in so many ways. It was only a matter of weeks before his sexual urges returned to him. He saw Agent Romanov walking the hallway one day and popped a boner so suddenly that he had to dive into an empty office and hide until he could make it go away. Two years later and he was fucking her, and it was nice and all, but he still thought about the bodies of men, imagined being held and taken care of. 

And he’d learned the century by then, had become acclimated to it. There was a spectrum, and anybody could fall anywhere on it. ‘Boyfriend’ became an actual word, a reality, something that could be wished for. And _‘husband’?_ well… That became a dream. 

Bucky lays in his bed and stares at the ceiling, entertaining the fantasy with Steve. He wonders if it’s better or worse now, to have these desires in a world where it’s actually possible. In a way it hurts more, because now people _can_ have ‘boyfriends’. A relationship with another man, out in the open, never shameful or secret, is a concept Bucky can wrap his mind around, yet it’s still so out of reach. For him at least. Because he’s a damaged piece of work.

Bucky sighs and swings his legs over the side of the bed, getting up and padding into the kitchen with thoughts of making breakfast.

Steve finds him by the stove, contemplating a box of _Bisquick_. He parks himself on one of the island’s barstools and asks, “Waffles?” 

“Don’t have a waffle iron,” Bucky mumbles as he reads the instructions on back of the box. He has a vague memory of the brand name, in the same font but printed on a tin instead of a box. He figures his mother probably baked with it, back in the day. _Add milk and an egg._ He blinks, wondering if he has those things in his fridge. “I’ve never made pancakes,” he says, looking up at Steve. _Will Steve have some objection to breakfast?_ he wonders. Steve’s put his clothes from yesterday back on. Bucky’s still in just his pajama pants. He looks down at himself and wonders if he should have put a shirt on…

“It’s not hard,” Steve is saying. Bucky looks back up. “I’ll help you,” Steve offers. “If you want.”

Bucky gulps, has to swallow down the taste of domesticity and affection that’s back to pooling on his tongue, like a flavor he can’t get rid of. “Okay,” he croaks. “Yeah. That’d be nice.” He gives the box’s pancake recipe another read, then goes to see what he’s got in the way of a griddle.

He’s halfway through a batch of pancakes when Steve speaks up, saying, “I really am sorry for staying the night like that. I hope you don’t feel…” he seems to struggle for a word.

“Stop apologizing,” Bucky grunts, flipping another pancake and adding it to the growing stack he’s got going. Steve may not have thoughts about being in a relationship with him, but Bucky does, and all of Steve’s apologizing—like he’s done something wrong—is kind of killing the fantasy. “I told you I don’t mind it. I’m making you breakfast because I want to, not because I feel put-upon, or whatever.”

Steve smiles and his shoulders lower in relief. “Oh. Okay.”

Bucky nods, flips another pancake. “I was thinking… …maybe you could stay.” Steve stares, taking that in. The pause doesn’t do anything to help the heat that’s building in Bucky’s face. He wants to look up from his pancakes to see Steve’s face but he can’t. He wants to snap at him to _say something_. “Well?” he asks. “Could you?”

Steve snaps out of it and clears his throat. “It’s Saturday,” he says, like it explains something.

“Yeah I know.” Bucky gathers the courage to look up. “Does that mean you won’t stay?” He knows what he’s asking, knows that this is Steve’s day off. And if he chooses to stay with Bucky today, it won’t be for work, won’t be one of their sessions. It’ll be… something else.

“I…” Steve thinks about it, then says. “I will. If you want me to.”

“I do.”

Steve nods, and the smile he gives is so goddamn earnest that Bucky kind of forgets about the pancakes. He burns the last few but doesn’t remotely care.

-

“I want to talk today.” Bucky says once they’re settled on the couch, each with a plate piled high with pancakes. “I want to… tell you more.”

“More?” Steve asks, eyes keen on him.

Bucky nods. “Yeah. More than I have.” He’s got Steve in his apartment, spending the entire day with him by choice, and he fully plans to take advantage of it. “I haven’t always been open with you. About my past.”

“I know, Buck,” Steve says, his tone gentle. “You only ever have to tell me what you’re comfortable with.”

“I know that,” Bucky says. “And I want to. I want to tell you it all, even if it’s not easy.” He looks down at his plate, pushes a piece of pancake around in the syrup. “I haven’t talked about it with anybody besides Sam,” he says. “And it’s… it’s lonely, you know?” Steve shifts, and then something is touching Bucky’s foot. His eyes shoot up and he sees that it’s Steve, nudging their feet together. It makes Bucky smile, makes his heart relax a little.

“I know what you mean,” Steve is saying. “So, where do you start?”

Bucky sighs and tries to figure out the answer to that question. Where _does_ he start? There’s so much. How does he tell Steve? How does he explain that he’s a hundred years old without sounding like a complete nutcase? “Um,” he says. “Jarvis?”

 _“Yes Sir?”_

Steve startles at the sound of Jarvis’ voice coming through the apartment’s sound system. “Whoa,” he says. “What is that?”

Bucky smirks, realizing that he’s never utilized Jarvis when Steve is around. “Tony Stark’s A.I. program,” he says, gesturing at the ceiling in indication. “Jarvis. He can do all sorts of things. It’s cool.”

“So… he’s like your own, personal version of _Alexa_?”

Bucky snorts. “Basically, but way more advanced.”

 _“Thank you, Sir,”_ Jarvis says at the compliment, making Steve raise his eyebrows in disbelief.

“Wow.”

“Hm, yeah. You get used to it. Jarvis, can you print out the Shield files on me? I want to show them to Steve.” 

_“I can,”_ Jarvis says. _“There are eight hundred and thirty-seven pages of information, Sir. Would you like all of them?”_

“Christ, no.” Bucky huffs. “Just uh, just print the basics? Stuff I’d need to explain who I am to Steve.” 

_“Of course, Sir,”_ Jarvis says, and a moment later the printer in Bucky’s second bedroom/gym/office can be heard whirring to life.

“That’s amazing,” Steve says. He looks at Bucky curiously. “But why do you need paperwork to explain?”

Bucky sighs and stabs another piece of pancake onto his fork. “It’s a long story,” he tells him. “Just wait till Jarvis prints all the files out. I don’t want you to think I’m crazy.”

Steve smiles confusedly at that, but he accepts it. “Alright. I can wait.” He sets in to eating his pancakes, too.

Jarvis winds up printing out fifty-nine sheets; the entirety, apparently, of what constitutes ‘the basics’ of Bucky’s history. Bucky gathers them up from the printer and holds them hostage from Steve. “Okay,” he says, settling back on his end of the couch and trying to be calm. _This isn’t something to be afraid of_ , he reminds himself. Steve won’t freak out. Hopefully. Bucky sits facing the center of the couch, his feet tangling with Steve’s in the middle. “So,” Bucky says. He taps the stack of papers in his lap. “This is just for later, when you don’t believe me and need proof. I can also text Sam, if you need to talk to him about it.”

Steve sighs. “Bucky, I know you wouldn’t lie to me. Whatever it is, I’ll take you at your word. Promise.” He shoves Bucky’s foot with his toes, making Bucky smile.

“That’s sweet,” he says. “But don’t make promises you can’t keep.” _Okay_ , he thinks, _where to start?_ “I… want to talk about the rape. To start off.” 

Steve nods, solemn. “Okay.”

Bucky swallows and looks off to the side. He doesn’t want to look at Steve’s face for this. “I was working as an operative for ASF, when it happened. Most of the work I did, most of my assignments, were track and kill. I’m a trained sniper. They sent me places where very specific people needed killing, with minimal collateral damage.”

“Okay.” Steve’s voice is calm and understanding, which gives Bucky courage to continue,

“I was sent to Serbia. My team scattered to gather intel. I had a target to track in Belgrade.” Bucky inhales and dives in to the next part. “I was taken before I could set up for the kill. They took me to a building, a basement in an industrial park. They beat me straight away, and they took my weapons, so fighting could only get me so far. Then when it became clear that they didn’t know exactly what they were going to do with me, they got creative. They all started talking, smoking cigarettes, just… acting more casual. I couldn’t understand, but I knew they were discussing me. They were laughing and staring at me.”

Steve makes a noise, and Bucky looks up. Steve’s eyes are full of concern. “You okay?” he checks.

“Yeah. Um, there was a mattress in the room where I’d been sleeping, nothing much else besides a bucket for, _you know_. So they shoved me down and took my clothes.” He shrugs, remembering the moment when it had dawned on him, what was about to happen. “I fought, once I realized, so of course they beat me again. There were five of them.” Bucky blinks and fights hard not to crumple the papers in his hands as he says, “It hurt. I heal really well but I still had to have surgery, when I got back.”

“Oh,” Steve says, voice nothing but an upset breath. He doesn’t make any grand exclamation, and he doesn’t try to comfort Bucky, something for which Bucky’s grateful. 

“Yeah. They raped me… anally, first. Taking turns. One or two of them would hold me down while another one came behind.” Bucky shudders, remembering. “I think they all used spit, but it was for themselves, not me. They didn’t care that I was bleeding.” Bucky closes his eyes, tries to take a deep breath and not fall apart so early in his story. _Get it together, Barnes_. If Steve can listen, Bucky can tell him. “It was… the worst pain I’d ever felt in my life. Still is. When it was happening, I just couldn’t believe that I wasn’t dying, that it just kept happening, over and over as they took turns. I thought I’d pass out eventually, I _hoped_ for it.” Bucky shrugs. “But I never did. They left at some point. There was a heavy door that locked and I couldn’t get out. I just laid there in agony. I think I slept some but I’m not really sure. Then they came back the next day and did it all again. But they took their time then, like they were having more fun with it. They spoke a lot more.”

“To you?” Steve asks, voice quiet and careful.

Bucky snorts. “No. They didn’t say a word to me.” He looks down at his lap and thinks about how that was one, small blessing of the whole ordeal. “I’m glad they didn’t,” he says. “Everything they were doing, it was obviously just for them. It would’ve been worse, I think, if they’d made me more a part of it than I was.” Bucky looks up and meets Steve’s gaze. “Does that make sense?”

“Yeah, Buck. I think so.”

“Hm.” Bucky nods. “After the second day, it was very infrequent. I couldn’t track the time then, I was so disoriented. Later I’d learn that they had me for three weeks. After the second day it was usually just one guy who stood outside the door. He’d come in to give me water, a little food if there was any. I don’t think they _wanted_ me to die, specifically,” Bucky muses. “Just… they were bored, and they obviously didn’t have any clear orders for what to do with me. I got sick after a while. I was hurt, and feverish. They came a few more times and raped me again, but I think I was getting really bloody and stuff. I dunno. They stopped wanting my ass and had me perform oral sex on them instead.” Bucky scoffs, and it’s a hollow, bitter thing. “Well, ‘perform’ probably isn’t the best word for it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well like I said: I was sick. Delirious, sometimes. I couldn’t participate.” He sighs. This is where the memories blur together, less distinct, less painful. “They used me until they couldn’t, I guess. Then they got frustrated, and I remember them beating me a little more. Then there was just… nothing.” Bucky finishes, looking up at Steve. He feels sick, he realizes, but it’s the sort of empty, exhausted sick that comes after having thrown up and gotten all the poison out. Steve is staring at him, eyes pinched and wounded, even though Bucky’s sure he’s trying to hold it together. “I don’t remember anything after that. I don’t remember being rescued. I just woke up back here, doped up and thirsty in a hospital room.” He sighs. “And that’s that.”

Steve is quiet for a long, long moment, and then he says, “That’s horrific, Bucky.”

Bucky nods, agreeing. “Yeah.” He’s satisfied, is glad that Steve doesn’t try to say more. “I recovered. Like I said: I heal really well. I was back on my feet in a week, back here in the apartment in two.”

Steve makes some sort of noise in his throat, and Bucky recognizes it for the disbelief that it is. “Yeah,” he agrees. “This is where it gets hard to believe.” He meets Steve’s eyes. “You ready?”

“I’m here for you, Buck.”

 _Deep breath_ , Bucky tells himself, and he knows he has to say this quickly, or else he won't get it out at all. “…The long and short of it is, I was born in 1917. James Buchanan Barnes, in the Brooklyn tenement my parents lived in. I grew up fine, I guess. Enlisted in ‘forty-one and shipped out in ‘forty-two. I made rank as a sniper—a sergeant—in the Army. I was stationed in France, then Italy, then briefly in Switzerland.”

“ _What?_ ”

Bucky ignores him, pressing on, “I fell. I was captured by enemy operatives. I’d lost my arm but they replaced it with this.” Bucky holds up his metal arm in indication. “They ran experiments on me to enhance me, make me stronger, and it worked. Then they brainwashed me using a couple different methods, and I forgot who I was. Completely.” He meets Steve’s eyes, staring right at him as he says, “I didn't even know my own name. It took a long time for me to get it back. When Shield pulled me from cryo, I couldn’t do anything for myself at first. I only spoke Russian. They had to give me orders, had to tell me when to eat and sleep and take a piss.” Bucky shudders, feeling heat creep into his face at the freaked-out way Steve is looking at him.

“…Cryo?” Steve finally asks. 

“Cryogenic hibernation,” Bucky explains. “Hydra was a Soviet program, originally; funded and operated in conjunction with the Germans. They had a lot of advanced tech. They’d take me out when they needed me, then put me back when they didn’t.”

“…Bucky,” Steve says, trying to stop him and sounding sad. He _does_ think he’s crazy, and Bucky glares at him.

“Just let me finish,” he snaps. “I deserve that much, don’t I?”

Steve gulps, then nods. “Okay.”

“Hydra fell. Shield found me. Once I was up to speed they steered me towards a job with Avengers Special Forces, which I took because let’s be honest—I didn’t exactly have any other plan.” Bucky nods to reassure himself, because Steve’s expression sure as hell isn’t doing the job. “I did that for two years before Belgrade happened, and now I’m here, telling you all of it. And you think I’m crazy.”

Steve startles, mouth gaping open and not knowing what to say. “I—” he cuts off, then tries again, “ _Bucky_ ,”

“—It’s okay,” Bucky says, cutting him off before he has to say anything else. “I knew you would.” He smirks, self-deprecating. “Can’t exactly blame you, after a tale like that.” He leans across the couch and hands the papers over to Steve, who takes them with a tentative hand. “It’s a lot of material, but you should read it all,” Bucky says, his voice quiet now, almost soothing. “Soak it in, you know?” 

Steve stares at him for a long moment, looking almost pained. Whatever he’s thinking, whatever he wants to say, he manages to hold it back. “Okay,” he nearly whispers, and he looks down to begin reading the papers.

Bucky breathes a sigh of relief. _Thank fucking god_ , he thinks. 

He gets up from the couch and heaves a _huge_ sigh as he walks over to the kitchen. The hard part’s over, he tells himself. Now he’s just got to wait. He opens the cupboard and pulls out the Asgardian mead, grabs a glass and puts some ice in it, pours. He doesn’t stop at two fingers, or three. He doesn’t pour Steve any because now definitely isn’t the time to tell Steve that he can only have a teaspoon of the stuff because he’s a mere mortal, that Bucky gets his hardcore liquor supply from a god-prince from outer space.

He’d left out any mention of that. Baby steps.


	9. 9

“…I guess I get why you held off on telling me,” Steve says from the couch. 

An hour has passed, spent with Steve reading the files and Bucky nursing his drink. Bucky’s a little drunk, and he can tell just by the sound of Steve’s voice that he believes it all now. Believes Bucky’s story, crazy and fucked up as it is. “I take it you don’t need to talk to Sam, then,” Bucky says, not really a question, but Steve shakes his head anyway.

“No. I believe you.”

Bucky sighs and sits further back into his spot on the couch, relaxing. _Thank Christ_ , he thinks. He’s been fretting for the past hour, feeling every second tick by and wondering how many more it’d be before Steve opened his mouth to flat out say that he didn’t believe Bucky, that Bucky had serious issues and needed more help than Steve was equipped to give, that Steve wouldn’t be coming back for another session. But Steve hasn’t said that, and it feels like a weight’s been lifted from Bucky’s shoulders.

“You must be mad at me,” Steve says, and Bucky raises an eyebrow. “Well,” he says, sheepish, “I did basically call you crazy.”

“You didn’t call me crazy, you just thought it,” Bucky corrects quietly. He takes another sip of his drink. “No harm, no foul.” Slowly, Steve leans forward and sets the folder of Bucky’s documents aside on the coffee table. He gets up and comes over to sit next to Bucky. He bumps their shoulders together before wrapping his arm around Bucky’s back, and the easy comfort of it makes Bucky smile softly into the lip of his glass. “Thanks,” he says. “It feels nice, to finally have it out in the open.”

“I’ll bet,” Steve says. His thumb is rubbing back and forth on Bucky’s arm. “How many people know?”

“Ten?” Bucky thinks about it, then nods. “Yeah. A handful of senior Shield operatives. Fury and Natasha. Sam, and now you.”

“Do you like it that way?”

Bucky nods immediately. “I killed a lot of people when I was… when I was in captivity.” Sam has worked long and hard with Bucky to get him to refer to it as such, placing the blame on Hydra rather than himself. “I’d be prosecuted, if people knew.”

Steve makes a discontented noise. “That’s awful.”

Bucky shrugs. “It is what it is. I’ve come to terms with it. Mostly.”

“That’s good.” Steve’s quiet for a long moment, and Bucky sips his drink. He gets the feeling that Steve disapproves—he hasn’t exactly kept it secret, that he thinks Bucky’s on his way to a drinking habit. But he keeps quiet about it now, which pleases Bucky. “I have a lot of questions,” Steve finally says, tone soft. “But I won’t ask them if you don’t want me to.”

Bucky turns his head to look at Steve and, on an impulse, pecks a kiss to his lips. “I don’t mind,” he says. 

“Okay.” Steve pulls his arm back and stands, gesturing for Bucky to do the same. “Come on,” he says. “Let’s take a bath.”

Bucky raises an eyebrow. “A bath? As in, together?” The idea of it is incredibly intimate, and it’s not something he would’ve expected Steve to be okay with. “Is that something you do with your… with people like me?”

Steve blushes. “Well, no. I haven’t.” He looks down at his feet. “We don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

“—I do,” Bucky says, far too eagerly. Now it’s his turn to blush. “I mean, it’s not exactly a burden, seeing you naked.” 

Steve laughs and pulls him up from the couch. He takes Bucky’s drink from his hand with a pointed look and sets it aside, but doesn’t say anything. Bucky rolls his eyes and lets Steve lead him into the bathroom.

-

Sitting in the tub with his back to Steve’s chest, Bucky can’t keep his thoughts from drifting into the sentimental and domestic. _This is something boyfriends do together_ , he thinks, not sexual surrogates and their clients. He’s inordinately pleased that Steve is crossing this boundary with him. Steve had said he hasn’t allowed it with other people, and Bucky takes a secret sort of satisfaction in that. He thinks, _hey_ , maybe Steve likes him too. Likes him beyond the professional boundary that he’s supposed to be maintaining. Bucky lets his head tip back to rest on Steve’s shoulder, hoping that that’s true. Steve had spent the night, after all. Maybe Bucky’s not a pining fool. Maybe this could be something. 

He still doesn’t have the courage to ask, though.

Steve wraps his arms around Bucky and they slosh their legs lazily in the water as he asks Bucky questions about his life. He mostly keeps it light hearted though, which Bucky appreciates. “What was your family like?” he asks. “Growing up?”

Bucky smiles where Steve can’t see. It’s nice to be asked about the regular details of his life. All Shield has ever wanted to know are the facts about Hydra, his kill counts and tactical abilities, his knowledge of the layouts of enemy territory. Nobody has ever asked Bucky what his best or worst childhood memory was, what his mom’s name was, if he’d done well in school. The fact that it’s the first thing Steve thinks to ask about makes Bucky feel cared for. He closes his eyes and thinks about his life before. “I was born in 1917,” he says.

“So weird,” Steve says, and Bucky chuckles.

“Yeah. My family was kind of poor I guess. We lived in Brooklyn. My parents were good people—really in love, raised my sisters and I right.”

“How many sisters did you have?”

“Three,” Bucky says. “I was the oldest, so I always had to be pretty responsible. Things were pretty tough from when I was like, thirteen till I was eighteen or so.”

Steve hums in understanding. “The Great Depression?” 

“Yeah.” Bucky’s smiling again. “Are you a history nerd, Steve?”

“A little bit.”

Somehow that isn’t a surprise. Bucky nods against Steve’s shoulder. “Yeah. I was a good student and all, but I left school junior year. Took a job at a warehouse to help my parents out.” He shrugs. “It wasn’t too bad, then. Economy was on the upswing. I had a few years living on my own, then the war happened and I went overseas.”

Steve is quiet for a long moment, his hands running over Bucky’s stomach. Then he bends to kiss his neck and murmurs, “Thank you for your service.”

Bucky snorts. “Oh my god, you are such a dork.”

“You love it,” Steve says. 

Bucky has to close his eyes at that. _Yeah_ , he thinks. Yeah he does. “Dork,” he just mutters again.

“You ever kill anybody important?” Steve asks. Bucky sets in to naming the notable kills he can remember, and Steve guffaws at a few. “Holy shit,” he curses. “That’s crazy.”

“Hm, yeah.”

“You must be really talented.”

“That’s one word for it.”

Steve hooks his foot over Bucky’s in the water. “You said you were an expert shot.”

“Inhumanly so,” Bucky confirms. He doesn’t have to be ashamed of that, he’s learned with Sam. It had been something he’d been proud of, during the war, and he still can be. Just because Hydra went on to use his skills for evil didn’t mean that they weren’t still _his_ skills, _his_ abilities. “I’m good with a knife, too,” he says. “And hand to hand.”

Steve groans a little. “Why is that hot?”

“Maybe you have a proficiency kink,” Bucky says. Steve inhales behind him, and Bucky imagines that he must be blushing. “Do you?” he asks, intrigued.

“I dunno,” Steve says. “Maybe.”

“I spar with Natasha a lot,” Bucky offers. He’s told Steve about his friendship with her, and their shared history. “She’s kind of the only one who can take me.”

“Now you’re bragging.”

“Eh, maybe.” Bucky rubs back against Steve, enjoying the feel of his strong body behind his. He’s so goddamned _big_. “You like it,” he purrs.

At Bucky’s hipbones, Steve’s fingers tighten. “Yeah,” he says, voice dipping lower than before. “Yeah, I think I might have that kink.”

Bucky feels a thrill go through him, aroused at the thought of learning what gets Steve hot, of being the one who _makes_ Steve hot. He dares to ask, “What else do you like, Stevie?”

“Bucky…”

“I’ll tell you if you tell me.”

“Jesus,” Steve groans. “Okay fine. I like… praise. Sweet talk.”

“You are such a sap.” Steve nips his neck in reprimand and Bucky moans softly. Under the water, his cock is thickening. “What else?”

“I like taking my time. I like massages.”

“Knew that already. What else?”

“Intimacy.”

Bucky makes an unimpressed noise. “Isn’t sex, by nature, intimate?”

“No,” Steve answers firmly. “No, it’s not.” The way that he pulls Bucky against him in the water and runs his hands over his chest and belly makes Bucky’s lips part on a sigh, his thighs falling open wider.

“Oh?”

“Do you think what those men did to you was intimate?” Steve asks, and his voice is barely a whisper. He seems to anticipate Bucky’s reaction, because his strong arms hold Bucky fast when he squirms in discomfort. “Exactly,” Steve says, answering his own question. He pushes Bucky’s hair out of the way and mouths along the wet skin of his shoulder. “A lot of people go their whole lives just fucking. But I like truly intimate sex. Lovemaking.”

Bucky exhales, feeling heat rip through him. “L-lovemaking?” he asks.

“Yeah.” Steve sucks on his neck. “Deep and slow. Tantric, almost.” 

“ _God_.” Bucky’s definitely getting hard. “Is that actually a thing people do?”

“Oh it’s definitely a thing,” Steve says. “Kissing, lots of kissing. Teasing, a degree of orgasm control”—Bucky groans—“and sex toys.”

“What?!” Bucky asks, insanely turned-on by the idea of Steve using sex toys on him, of _him_ using sex toys on _Steve_. “Why haven’t you brought any over, then?”

Steve rubs against Bucky’s backside. He’s hard, too. “I didn’t think of it. S’not something I usually do with—”

Bucky twists and pulls Steve into a kiss before he can manage to utter the word ‘clients’. Bucky’s sick of being a client. He doesn’t want to think of that anymore. He just wants Steve. He kisses him, dipping his tongue into Steve’s mouth in a way that just feels so _real_ he can hardly stand it. Steve groans and says, “Bucky…” against his mouth.

Bucky pulls back. He tips his head against Steve’s shoulder and rubs back against his erection. “Want you,” he says. “I want to… _god_ I just wanna…” he trails off, feeling like he can’t even ask for sex, not after the freak out he’d had the night before. Frustrated, he groans. “Steve,” he pleads. “I want that. Everything you just said. I want to have sex like that. I wanna be with you but I don’t—”

“Shh,” Steve shushes him. “I know, Buck. I know.” Bucky’s not sure if Steve really does know, but he doesn’t complain when Steve shifts in the water and nudges him to get up, and he follows obediently to let Steve pull him out of the bathtub and stand him on the bathmat and dry him off. Bucky could easily do it himself, but there’s a strange sort of intimacy in letting Steve do it, in baring every part of himself for this simple task. Steve lingers longer than necessary at the tops of his thighs, looking at his cock, but he doesn’t make a move to touch him. He stands and discards the towel. Then he takes Bucky’s hand—his left one, Bucky doesn’t fail to notice—and leads him into the bedroom.  
-


End file.
